


Two Years

by M_hys_a



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: As if a woman has ever loved a man for his virtue, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Heavy on the drama, Jealous Cullen, Jealous Solas, Please Note the Rating, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:13:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 52,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5325284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_hys_a/pseuds/M_hys_a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As reparation for a broken promise, Fen’Harel makes Deirdre Lavellan an offer: the safety of the people she loves in exchange for a promise to leave her life and join him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preparations and Arrivals

**Author's Note:**

> "As if a woman has ever loved a man for his virtue."

                How long does it take to prepare for the inevitable parting from your life? Most people spend an entire lifetime in the attempt, and at the end of it still find themselves speechless and unready, clasping with shaking fingers at what, in the eyes of Fate, is no longer really theirs. Meanwhile, she had been given only one year. One year to remove herself from her world, one year to untie the bindings that held her to the people, and the places, and the duties she had known. And how had she spent it? Admirably, she hoped – getting her affairs in order under the guise of Inquisition business, slowly contributing less and less when there were decisions needing to be made, and trying to make it such that her absence would not be felt too keenly by the people that she left behind. Was she doing the right thing? Had she made the right choice?

                In the end, did she really have a choice at all?

 

***

 

            No-one knew exactly what was happening on the day that the woman arrived, but everyone suspected. Ever since the night that the Dread Wolf had captured the turncoat Sylaise and brought her to the Fade for judgment, Fen’Harel had not been himself. Only two people had been with him that night during the judgment, but neither of them provided a full story. In fact, one of them had disappeared without a trace the following day, and the other seemed very hesitant to speak of what he knew. The Inquisitor had arrived, he said simply, and in the course of the conversation she was injured. That was all he had seen.

                But there were other sources of information; other people with threads to weave into the tale. One such source was the jeweler, who told of a surprise visit from the Dread Wolf that had culminated in an unusual assignment. He had brought with him a ring – a woman’s ring – and asked that it be modified per his instructions. The ring was unique, the jeweler said, clearly not originating from any commercial artisan that he had ever encountered. In fact, it did not appear to have been made by a jeweler at all – but, excuse him, he was distracting himself. More fascinating than the ring’s mysterious source was the design wrought into the gold, in which the figures of a lion and a fox stood face-to-face, regarding one another across the top of the band. When the Dread Wolf showed him the ring, he asked the jeweler to modify it, handing him a paper on which he had sketched out the design. In the Dread Wolf’s sketch, the face of a wolf was added to the band, directly centered at the bottom of the ring and looking out.

               The jeweler, while confused by the request, was thrilled with the challenge. It was a difficult task, as he had to determine how best to preserve the top half of the band while recrafting the bottom. Lesser craftsmen might have balked at the request, but it was exactly the sort of exercise that this particular man felt deserved his level of expertise. He warned Fen’Harel that it might take him several weeks to finish, but the Dread Wolf encouraged him to take his time to ensure that the job was done well. His greatest concern, he said, was that the ring make a lasting impression.

               And so it did. By the time the jeweler was finished, you could not tell that the ring had ever been modified – that there had ever been a time when the wolf did not calmly regard the world as it was encountered through the grasping, stroking, feeling side of the woman’s hand. It was extraordinary. When the jeweler delivered it to the Dread Wolf, he bowed deeply, calling it his greatest work, and indeed the Dread Wolf seemed immensely pleased with the efforts. He studied the ring for several moments before quietly sliding it onto the smallest finger of his right hand and giving the jeweler an appreciative nod. “Thank you,” he told him. “You have done well.”

               And there were other signs, as well. The man who was in charge of furnishing the Dread Wolf’s hidden fortress spoke of new additions being made to their leader’s quarters. He had requested a larger bed, with softer sheets. He had requested new curtains to cover the high windows of his rooms, and rugs to cover the cold stone floors. He had requested an additional desk, situated so that the afternoon light would stream in upon it, and that upon the desk be placed a vase that was to be filled daily with fresh flowers. He asked for a small table for private dining, and for a private bathing room with a large copper tub that was to remain stocked with scented oils and soaps at all times.

               The tailors whispered that he had sent them orders for closet full of clothing, garments fitted for a lean elven woman, and the gardeners told of a strange request to plant an entire plot of their garden with a particular breed of small yellow flowers. By the time that several months had passed, everyone was in agreement that the Dread Wolf had taken a lover, and that she would be joining them in their fortress. But who was she? When had he met her? And why had he not taken one of his own to his bed, given that there were so many among his ranks who were so willing?

               When the morning came in which the Dread Wolf sent an order to the kitchen requesting that a pot of freshly-brewed tea be delivered to his quarters, everyone knew she had arrived. It was known throughout the fortress that the Dread Wolf hated tea, and his followers suspected correctly that he had ordered it for his lover, who sometime during the night had made her way from the outside world and into their hidden enclave, infiltrating their home like an illness. They resented her, they realized, for the amount of distraction she had caused the Dread Wolf. They resented her, they realized, because she was not one of them.

               The young woman who delivered the tea was the first to catch a glimpse of the Dread Wolf’s lover, and word of her appearance spread quickly. Based on what the young woman described, many thought that the Dread Wolf’s lover sounded suspiciously similar in appearance to the infamous Inquisitor. But certainly Fen’Harel would not have overlooked so many loyal servants in favor of a woman who was one of his primary enemies? They could not believe it. And yet, as the days passed, and the woman emerged from the room pale and silent, those who had served as agents in the Inquisition gave a solemn confirmation to what they had feared. The Dread Wolf’s lover was indeed Inquisitor Lavellan.

               Everyone showed the utmost civility to the woman, knowing that, as the Dread Wolf’s guest, she was to be treated with the highest level of deference. And yet, behind their hands, they spoke of her with disdain and mistrust. It was said that she had a human husband in the Inquisition. Why had she left him? And why would the Dread Wolf soil himself with someone who had lain with a shemlen?

               It did not help that the woman seemed hesitant to accept the Dread Wolf’s favor. She seemed to move as if in a waking dream, turning her eyes about the world around her without appearing to register what it was that she was seeing. And Fen’Harel would follow her like a besotted hound as she wandered his vast fortress, his hands reaching out to lightly skim the edges of her clothing, his eyes never seeming to leave her. He all but abandoned his mission, instead spending his every waking moment tending to her as if she were a delicate flower that threatened to wilt away at the slightest hint of a frost.

               A flower, it seemed, that would receive all of the attention the Dread Wolf could give. For the rest of his garden was forgotten, and the fertile fields of loyalty tilled by the many followers who called him their master lay fallow, as the sole purpose of his days became the continued effort to make his chosen bloom shake off her wintry chill and, at last, lift her face to the sun.

               Meanwhile, in other parts of his garden, the inhabitants withered, and resented.

 

***

 

                There were some memories that were simply too painful to recall.

               Some of them were too sharp, like the memory of the dead she had failed at Haven. The sight of their bodies, twisted and blackened against the snow, and the aching pain that settled in her stomach as she confronted her own failure. Where had she gone wrong? How many more could she have saved if she had been faster? Stronger? Less overcome by fear? A better leader? A better person?

               Other memories were too tender, like the memory of waking on a couch in the rotunda after a night of uninhibited drinking, unable to recall how she got there and shocked to find the Commander sleeping on the floor beside her. “You refused to go any further,” he told her, “and I didn’t think it was safe for you to sleep here alone.” And so he had spread out on the floor beside her, keeping watch through the small hours of the night, long before he was her lover, long before he was her husband – back when he was merely her loyal and ever-watchful friend.

               Regardless of the shape they took, or the nature of pain that they inflicted, they were all memories that Deirdre had to keep suppressed at all costs, lest they drive her headlong into madness. And as she moved through her life with the Dread Wolf, paying heed to the silent call of the inevitable passing of time, she found that more and more of her experiences had to be shut away like this, sealed tightly in a dark corner of her mind so that she could prevent them from consuming her. She mourned the loss of those memories for what they were – a loss of her own life. She knew that her time was limited, and by finding that so many of her experiences had to be hidden away from her conscious mind, she felt as though she had lost entire years of her life. Years that she knew she would never get back.

               Not surprisingly, all too many of these memories involved Solas.

               Solas, lit by a fire in the town center at Haven, evaluating her. (“Yes, I suspected that you are not a mage,” he had told her. “Tell me, do you have any knowledge of magic at all? Any familiarity with the Fade?” His question was followed by a silence in which no words had been necessary to evoke a disappointed “I see.”)

               Solas, waiting for her in abandoned ruins on the Exalted Plains after she had gone out scouting alone in the night. (“When I woke and found you gone, I determined that I would lay awake until your return. When several hours passed, I found myself beginning to worry.” A small smile had crossed his face. “You are affecting me, _lethellan_ , so that I cannot sleep if I do not know that you are safely accounted for.”)

               Solas, reaching for her at last in the stillness of a slumbering inn after Adamant. (The inn was overrun with Inquisition soldiers and Grey Wardens, and they had been forced to spread out on the floor and sleep back-to-back. She had refused the bed that was offered, insisting that all beds be given to the wounded, and she and Solas made love among the sleeping bodies, her back pressed against his chest and him moving silently against her in the darkness.)

               Solas, stripping her of her vallaslin and calling her free moments before abruptly leaving her to face her fate alone. (“You are so beautiful,” he had told her. And at the time, she had believed him.)

               Solas, kneeling in the rubble after Corypheus fell, clasping the shattered pieces of the orb and looking like his face was going to break into a hundred glass shards. (“It is not _your_ fault,” he had said, but she knew even then that it had never been a matter of fault. For he had sought out the orb after the explosion, not her - even then, she was not first in his mind.)

               Solas, clad in shining armor and draped in a wolf’s pelt, surrounded by the figures of Qunari warriors he had frozen to stone with a mere glance. (Solas, who was not Solas. Solas, who was hers no more.)

               Starting with that moonlit night in the glade, she was always certain that she had finally reached the very depths of her despair – that there was nothing more that the blue-eyed elf could possibly do or say to her that might drag her any deeper into the mire of sorrow and betrayal. And perhaps that was the most remarkable thing about her love for him – that despite her belief that he had had brought her to the limits of her grief, he always found a way to draw her farther down. The moonlit glade paled in comparison to his unexpected intimacy after Corypheus fell (“Whatever happens, I want you to know that what we had was _real_ ”) followed by his immediate disappearance. His abrupt departure from the Inquisition paled in comparison to the day he exposed her to his true identity as Fen’Harel. His exposure as Fen’Harel paled in comparison to his unexpected visit in the Fade on the night before her wedding.

               And yet, even that experience seemed painless when compared to the memory of the night he lured her into the Fade and forced her to make a choice.

               Somehow, she found, there was _always_ room to fall farther down.

 


	2. Reparations

                She had set out in search of a young elven woman that the Dread Wolf was holding captive in the Fade. It had only taken her a few minutes to realize what she had done – that she had walked right into a trap masterfully laid by the Dread Wolf to lure her into his lair – but by that time, she knew that it was already too late.

               “It is alright, Sylaise,” she had told her friend, who looked like she was going to faint with terror. “You can go.”

               The woman was weeping, but she did as Deirdre instructed, making her way to the heavy doors of the main hall of Skyhold and casting one last agonized glance towards Deirdre before closing them behind her. The doors had barely settled before the Dread Wolf was upon her, wrapping his arms around her body and gazing down at her with an anguished face.

               “Are you hurt, _vhenan_? Are you alright? Let me heal you. You must believe that I would never have imagined one of my agents would be foolish enough to strike you! Please, look at me. You know that I would never willingly lead you to harm- Deirdre, _please_.”

               Deirdre did not return the embrace, clasping herself around the middle and refusing to look at him.

               “It matters nothing whether or not you thought I could be hurt here, Fen’Harel. The question is why you saw fit to lure me here at all.” She pulled herself away and finally looked at him. “What are you doing? And why are you doing it?”

               He paused, his eyebrows creasing and his eyes veiled with sadness.

               “Must I have some sort of agenda or ulterior motive for wanting to see you, _vhenan_?”

               She took a small step backwards, away from the warmth of him, and did not respond. He watched her move away with a small grimace.

               “Despite what you may think of me, I am very glad to see you, Deirdre,” he said softly. “You are… you are as lovely as ever.”

               “If you wanted to see me, Solas, you might have just asked,” she said quietly.

               He studied her face with a frown.

               “And you would have come? You wouldn’t think that wrong, now that you are a _married woman_?"

               She started at the bitter edge of his voice, the sudden change in his demeanor. When she spoke again, it was slowly. “We can meet without making love, Solas. We can be a part of each others lives without being lovers.”

               His eyebrows lifted at the statement, and the look in his eyes coupled with the small smile that curved his lips sent a chill down her spine. “Are you quite sure about that, Inquisitor?” he asked coolly.

               Deirdre felt her heart pound in her chest, and she did not respond. But neither did she step away when he approached her, slipping an arm around her waist and drawing his face towards hers. She felt the sirens of desire crooning in her ears, but she pulled herself away at the last moment, giving him a shove. She turned her back to him and tried to keep her voice from shaking. She felt treacherous tears filling her eyes.

               “Solas _, don’t._ I went down that path once, but I cannot go down it again.” He let out a breath.

               “I see. This time, you are determined to be faithful to your _husband._ ” She turned to face him, feeling her eyes flash.

               “Yes, Solas, I am determined to be faithful to my _husband_. Is that a crime?”

               He studied her for a moment, and a slight crease formed between his eyebrows. “You really don’t remember, do you?” he asked quietly.

               “Remember _what_ , Solas?”

               Silence fell between them for several moments, until at last the Dread Wolf spoke.

              “You made me a promise, _vhenan_ ,” he said softly, and, for a moment, Deirdre did not understand what he meant. But then, a memory returned to her, and she felt a pounding in her ears. Her mind flashed back, back to a sunny day at Skyhold, before the fall of Corypheus, when she had sat on the stairs beside the blue-eyed elf who now stood before her and spoke a jesting promise that she would never marry. She felt herself go pale.

               “You cannot be serious, Solas.”

               He seemed taken aback by her response, pausing for a moment before shaking his head and narrowing his eyes.

               “I am quite serious, _vhenan_ ,” he said evenly. “You made me a _promise_ , and you broke it. You _betrayed_ me.”

               Deirdre nearly gaped, overwhelmed by the sound of his lips forming the accusation of betrayal, and of the audacity of his speaking it. Had he forgotten all the times that he had wronged her? Did he not remember the glade, or the departure, or the confession? Had he failed to recall the painful truth that his every word, his every glance, his every _kiss_ had been a ruse, from the very first moment he told her his name on a snowy night in the Frostbacks?

               She was so shaken that she could not speak.

               “You have _betrayed_ me, _vhenan_ ,” he repeated, and at last she found her voice.

               “Tell me that you are joking, Solas.”

               Seven simple words, but it was enough. His eyes flashed, and she realized that she had truly angered him.

               “Joking? _Joking_? Do you think that I orchestrated all of this as a _joke_?”

               “ _You_ speak to _me_ of betrayal?” she cried, finding herself inspired at last by her own flames of anger. “Solas, everything that I have ever known of you has been a ruse. You have withheld information from me, misled me, abandoned me, and _lied_ to me so many times that I have lost count. Nearly every interaction that I have ever had with you has been riddled with deceit and dishonesty!” She paused for a moment, struggling to find the right words. “Most days, I’m not sure you ever loved me at all. Most days, I think that what I was foolish enough to believe was a relationship was really just another way for you to use me to accomplish your own ends.”

               He moved towards her, his face drawn and his eyes bright. “You cannot mean that, _vhenan_.”

               He reached out to clasp her hand, but she drew it away.

               “You betrayed me _from the_ _first_ ,” she said coldly.

               “What promises have I made to you, _vhenan_? What vows have I broken? I made no promises about being able to commit myself to you. I made no promises to remain loyal to the Inquisition until the end of my days. As I remember it, the only promise I ever made to you was that everything would be revealed to you once Corypheus fell, and I _kept_ that promise.” She scoffed.

               “ _Two years later_ ,” she hissed. “Two years _after_ you disappeared without a word.”

               “The timing is of no consequence, Inquisitor. The point is that I have made you no promises that I have failed to keep. In that, only _you_ are the guilty party.”

               “And what of requiring someone to make a promise when they lack the knowledge necessary to make a sound decision? I made that promise to _Solas_. To Solas, the man I loved. I made that promise to him _before_ he abandoned me, _before_ he disappeared from my life, and _before_ he revealed himself as my enemy.”

               “And what exactly is the difference between that Solas and the man who stands before you now? That Solas had the capacity to inflict all of the suffering that you have experienced. In fact, he _planned_ to inflict it, you simply did not know it at the time. Do not presume his innocence based on your own ignorance of his plans.”

               She stared at him, wondering whether she knew anything at all of the man before her.

               “I did not know,” she said quietly. “I made that promise to a different person.”

               “It was not a different person, _vhenan_ ,” he said forcefully. “You made that promise to _me_.”

               “And it was a _misunderstanding_ , Solas,” she said icily, her temper flaring again. “It was a comment made in passing, a jest to soothe your ruffled feathers after we spoke about the limits of our relationship. _Nothing more_.” She watched as his brows creased into an angry frown.

               “That is a curious sentiment, Inquisitor, and not one that I agree with. Where I am from, we are careful with our promises. We do not make promises that we don’t intend to keep, because we know that there are _consequences_ for the obligations we do not fulfill. However, it would appear that you have done just that.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his hand to silence her. “Which brings me to the point of our current meeting." His eyes darkened. "You will perhaps be interested to know why I brought you here?”

               Her eyes narrowed. _Trickster, indeed_ , she thought.

               “You have wronged me in the breaking of this promise, Inquisitor. As a result, I wanted to give you the opportunity to redeem yourself,” he continued. “To trade one promise for another. Will you hear my terms?” She continued to glare at him, so he spoke again after a tense silence. “I ask that you promise to voluntarily leave the Inquisition and join me.”

               Silence fell between them, thick and heavy as fog. She felt her heart drop into her stomach, and it was several moments before she regained the ability to speak. When she did, her voice wavered. Her anger had vanished, replaced by an anguished fear. _This is not the Solas you knew,_ she told herself, _you know nothing of what this man will do._

               “Solas, what are you saying?” she asked him. He took a step towards her.

               “I am saying that I would like for you to join me, _vhenan_ , and that I would like for you to do it willingly. I will forgive your broken promise, in exchange for a promise that you will leave the life you now lead and join me in my efforts to tear down the Veil.” She took a step away from him, feeling her heart begin to race.

               “What happened to you needing to walk a solitary path? What happened to you not wanting to inflict suffering on me by dragging me into the mess you have created? Or were those simply lies like everything else you've ever told me?” her voice was sharp, and laced with bitterness.

               “I underestimated how much your absence would impact me,” he said evenly. “I have come to understand that I will work more effectively if you are with me.” She let out a breath.

               “That is very romantic, Solas. I am glad to hear that you only wish for my presence so that you can be less distracted from your work.” His eyebrows creased, but she did not let him speak. “And what if I refuse? What if I say that I do not love you anymore? That I am happy with my husband and my life as the Inquisitor and that I would rather _die_ than support you in your attempt to murder an entire world full of innocent people?”

               His eyes narrowed, and she saw the predator emerge.

               “Then I will say that it is simply too much of a danger to allow you to remain with the Inquisition. From what I understand, you have made it the goal of your organization to make me reconsider my current course of action. With you as the leader, there is a very real risk that the Inquisition might succeed, and that is a risk that I can no longer afford. I have asked you to join me willingly, but if you refuse, then I would warn you that the alternative would be for me to take you by force. And if that were the case, I would also warn you that innocent people could be harmed trying to defend you.” A tense pause. “Like the woman outside, for example.”

               She heard a ringing in her ears as the meaning of his words sank in. _You know nothing of what this man will do._

               “You would… you would _threaten me_ , Solas?”

               Silence settled between them for several moments.

               “I would do _anything_ , _vhenan_ ,” he said finally, and the brittle-edged sorrow in his voice made her realize that he spoke the truth.

               She did not respond for several moments, trying to maintain a steady breath and keep herself from staggering forward. When she finally spoke, her voice seemed to come from far away.

               “Do you remember the spirit of Wisdom on the Exalted Plains, Solas? Do you remember the mages that you killed? I did not believe that they deserved to die. They had committed a crime, yes, but it was a crime of ignorance and foolishness, not of malicious intent. And yet when you asked me for permission to… to _murder_ them, I did nothing to stop you. I said nothing, for fear of being faced with your disapproval.” She felt herself begin to shake. “All these years, I have thought – if only I had said something, if only I had tried to talk you out of it, then their lives could have been spared. But now I begin to think that there is nothing I could have said that would have stopped you.” Her knees began to give way, and she sank to the ground. Her eyes were focused on the throne at the end of the room. “Nothing can stop you,” she said quietly, and she began to weep.

               In an instant, the Dread Wolf was at her side, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her hair, crooning low words of comfort in her ear. Her voice was tremulous. “Why didn’t you say anything of this when you visited me the night before my wedding?” she asked. “You might have at least spared me the pain of binding myself to him before abandoning him.”

               He tightened his grip around her, and the halting tone with which he spoke was laced with regret. “I said nothing because it would have been too suspicious if you were to disappear the night before your wedding. People might have connected the dots, and I would have found myself a target...” He paused, tracing his fingers over the wet surface of her cheek and studying her face. “Also, I was not certain at the time that I would follow through with this plan. I had hoped that seeing you again might convince me that I was making a mistake.”

               She let out a low groan. “And what convinced you otherwise?” she asked in a hollow voice.

               “Jealousy, Inquisitor,” he said quietly, and he held her gently as her body was wracked with sobs.

 

 

 

               After a time, the nature of their embrace changed. What had begun as a simple act of comfort took on a different shape, and she was aware of the change as it happened. Instead of being deafened by her sorrow, she became aware of the strength of the hands that gripped her, the sinewy planes of the chest that pressed against her, and of the unimaginable softness of the lips that trailed themselves through her hair. For a time, they simply stayed that way, side-by-side on the cold stone, until the Dread Wolf slowly, slowly, moved his hand down over her stomach and towards the laces of the breeches that she wore. She felt her breath catch, but she did not move to stop him as his fingers began to unlace them, nor as they moved beneath the fabric and towards her molten center.

               At last, the Dread Wolf moved himself to her lips and began to kiss her, running his hands through her hair and gently unfurling her body along the length of the stone floor. And after a time, she began to kiss him back, feeling her anguish be overtaken by pulsing waves of desire as his hands moved down her body. In spite of everything he had done, she still loved him. In spite of everything he had done, her body still sang for his touch like a siren. She realized with a dull ache that perhaps the Dread Wolf had been right. Perhaps there was no world where they could be anything but lovers.

               But when he moved to lift himself over her, to loosen her clothing and his and slide himself inside her, she fled, slipping out from beneath him and rising, turning her back to him as she adjusted her clothing. She heard him breathing heavily behind her. She did not speak for several minutes.

               “I have to go, Fen’Harel,” she said at last, and she heard him let out a deep sigh.

               “I know,” he said softly, and she realized that his voice was shaking. She turned to face him, and their eyes met. His face was taut with desire, but his eyes were heavy with sorrow. “One year, _vhenan_. Promise that you will come back to me in one year.”

               She drew in a deep breath, feeling the weight of her predicament settle in again. “I… I promise, Solas,” she said quietly. She moved to turn away, but he rose suddenly and clasped her hand, pulling her closer to him.

               Slowly, gently, and with the utmost care, he removed her wedding ring, closing it in his palm as she looked up at him in horror.

               “As a reminder of your promise, Inquisitor,” he said quietly, and stepped away from her. She opened her mouth to speak, but in another moment, he was gone.

 


	3. Moments of Happiness

                And then, one day, she smiled.

                The chambermaid placing fresh flowers in the Dread Wolf’s quarters had seen it. Fen’Harel and the Inquisitor were sharing a light breakfast, and although the chambermaid could not hear what they were saying, she saw the smile light across the Inquisitor’s face like a beacon, and she had seen the Dread Wolf lean forward in his chair and clasp her hand before returning the smile. When the chambermaid told the story, she spoke of the way that Fen’Harel’s eyes had crinkled at the edges as they shared a laugh. It was something she had never seen before.

                And then, later in the day, the two of them were seen making their way through the garden, hand-in-hand, the Inquisitor’s face dappled with sunlight and her hair moving slightly in the breeze. The Dread Wolf had seemed at ease in a way that was utterly unlike him, sliding an arm around her waist and kissing her hair, and the comfort of his touch briefly transformed the woman’s face into a vision of radiant happiness. Soon, they became a familiar sight – the two of them, strolling about the fortress, talking and laughing, huddled side-by-side over a book, painting the walls of empty rooms, setting out on scouting expeditions with only the other for company. They were always together, even when the Inquisitor fixed upon the notion that she would revive an abandoned section of the garden with only one full arm, spending entire days wrist-deep in the earth with her hair pulled back, and her cheeks smeared with dirt, and the Dread Wolf beside her, smiling.

                The night watch guards whispered of the sounds that emanated from their quarters late into the night – laughter and sighs, soft moans, and cries of pleasure. Chambermaids complained that they were not able to begin their service of the Dread Wolf’s quarters until the morning was well advanced, halted at the threshold by the locked doors and the sounds of lovemaking from within. And when they _were_ able to enter, it was often to the sight of the Dread Wolf and his lover still in bed, the sheets tangled around them and the Inquisitor’s hair tousled, her head resting against the Dread Wolf’s chest as he read to her.

                And then, strangest of all: they began to dance. The Dread Wolf had requested that the ballroom be cleared, and cleaned, and buffed until it glimmered in the candlelight, and one night he led the Inquisitor there without telling her their destination. The attendants who witnessed that first dance said that the Inquisitor seemed shocked by the opulence of the grand room, unsettled by the presence of the musicians that the Dread Wolf had assembled, and altogether hesitant to accept his request.

                “Do you remember how many times you asked me to dance while we were together in the Inquisition, _vhenan_ , and I refused you?” he asked her. The witnesses said she made a pained expression, and looked away.

                “More than I would have liked,” she said quietly.

                “Eight times, _vhenan_. At Skyhold, at the Winter Palace, at taverns, and at noble estates… I remember every refusal in full detail. They pained me, but the refusals were not as painful as the moment when I realized you had decided to stop asking. And then you found a different partner, and I was forced to watch.”

                The witnesses said she had stepped away from him, away from the center of the dance floor and towards the windows.

                “It doesn’t matter anymore, Solas,” she said softly, and he had reached for her hand.

                “It matters to me, _vhenan_ ,” he told her, and he led her into a dance.

                After that first time, they danced every night. Whether in the ballroom, or in the garden, or in the library, or in their quarters, Fen’Harel and his lover would stop what they were doing at the same time each night and begin their swirling turn about the room.

                In full view of anyone who chose to watch, Fen’Harel had told his lover. Because they no longer had anything to hide.

                It was all so strange, and so unlike the Fen’Harel that they had known, that his followers began to feel a deep loathing for the woman he called his _vhenan_. Who was she, and how had she come to earn the adoration of the man they all called their master? They could not understand it – she was not beautiful, she had no magic, she had only one full arm, she had married a shemlen – why, then, did the Dread Wolf’s eyes soften mid-sentence at the sight of her smile? Why did she make him abandon his work? Why did he walk beside her as if in the presence of a queen, instead of a rogue Dalish elf who had not even the dignity of a Clan allegiance to her name?

                And yet, despite the feelings of ill-will that continued to build towards her, it was evident that the woman made the Dread Wolf happy. He lost the angry tension of his shoulders, the grim set of his lips, and the cold glint of his eyes that had become so familiar to those who served him. He became more patient, more willing to listen, and more relaxed, and his followers found themselves resenting even this. Why had this woman been able to inspire such a change in the Dread Wolf? And was it for the best?

                What price had he paid, to bring her to his stronghold? At what cost to their own hopes did Fen’Harel now spend his days with the woman who had come to them in the middle of the night, arriving uninvited and bringing with her nothing but the disruption of everything that they believed in?

                Why had Fen’Harel forgotten them?

                Why had he chosen her over everything that he had promised them?

 

 

***

 

 

                The most painful thing for Deirdre to accept about her life with the Dread Wolf was that there were moments when she was genuinely happy. When she could forget who she was, and who he was, and what dark and twisted path had brought them to the room where they now sat, enjoying a dinner by candlelight and telling stories.

                Like when he was teaching her how to paint, sectioning off a large space on one of the long, stone walls of their hidden fortress and holding her arm as she tentatively applied dabs of color to the outlines they had sketched. She was nervous, aware that any imperfection in her work would glare out at her like a festering wound, but when her lover suddenly stepped up behind her, pressing himself against her back and extending his arm along the length of hers, gently closing his fingers over her wrist and guiding the brush to the stone, she felt as though her small attempt at creation might result in something truly beautiful. And when he turned his mouth to her ear, whispering words in elvhen and kissing her cheek and neck, she felt as though she would willingly endure countless lifetimes of suffering in exchange for merely one afternoon like this, spent in quiet intimacy with him.

                And then there were mornings when she would wake up in the bed they shared to find him not yet awake, his arm draped over her and his skin flushed and warm with sleep. She would study his face, all of the familiar lines and wrinkles, the scar that she so loved, and she would marvel at the sight of him when he was free from his waking worries. His face, relaxed in slumber, was so beautiful that it made her want to weep. She would study him, trying to commit his every feature to memory, until at last she could bear it no longer, and she would move herself closer to him, stroking his cheek with her hand and moving her lips to his. And she would kiss him, gently and searchingly, until he woke, groggy but smiling, and she would press herself against him, and he would gently lift the length of the shift that she wore up over her hips and guide himself into her, and they would make love that way, slowly, gently, and unbearably sweet, with his lips pressed against her ear and their legs twined together like a braid.

                And when they went out scouting ancient elvhen ruins, with the sun on his face and the brisk air making his cheeks and the tips of his ears turn pink, there were moments when she could pretend to herself that he had never left her at all. That the moonlit glade was just a bad dream. That he had stayed with her after the fall of Corypheus, and that the two of them had retired into a life of quiet exploration. Oftentimes, they were alone, sharing simple dinners by the fire and gasping with pleasure in the shadows of the night. But then she would look around her at the ruins where they rested, and she would remember what they represented, and the legacy that her lover sought to restore, and the price that he was willing to pay for it, and her waking dream would end so abruptly that it took her breath away. And then, her sorrow would descend again, gripping her like an ill-fitting tourniquet – one that was enough to make her light-headed and numb, but never quite enough to stop the bleeding. And his eyes would meet hers, and his face would crease with sadness, and he would say to her, “So, you have gone away again.”

                And that was the most painful part of her situation – she was living a half-life, torn between the present moment and her memories of what had come before. She would remember that, despite how much she might wish that there was nothing more to their explorations and studies than the satisfaction of two hungry intellects, the reality of her lover’s efforts was that they were inspired by the darkest of motivations. She would remember her husband, with his loyalty and his unflinching devotion, and her friends, who had stood beside her through so many years of sorrow and turmoil, and she would remember that the man who slept beside her was willing to obliterate every single one of them in exchange for the successful completion of his own aims. That he was willing to do the same to her, were she ever to try to stand in his way again. Her lover had made his choice, and he would make it again, and again, and again, until the deed was done. His loyalty to her would always falter when pitted against his loyalty to his own agenda.

                That was why he had brought her to him this way – against her will, but knowing that a part of her was glad to join him. This way, he did not have to make a choice between loving her and accomplishing his dark aims. By removing her ability to make a choice, he was spared from having to make a choice himself. And every day that she stayed with him – every time that she kissed him, and reached for him in the darkness, and felt her treacherous heart tremble with protectiveness when she saw signs of weariness on his face – she was allowing him to move forward with a plan that made her skin crawl with horror. Even if she did not directly support his efforts, she was complicit in them, and the guilt that she felt for her complicity made her wonder if her crime was not worse than actively aiding him. At least his agents believed in the plan that the Dread Wolf sought to make a reality, while she simply looked the other way and tried to delude herself into believing that the life she shared with Fen’Harel was somehow separate from the darker side of his intentions. But the delusions were temporary, and the darkness of reality haunted her steps at every moment, waiting for her defenses to fall.

                In the end, she would never be the one he chose.


	4. The Man You Called Solas

                In the first months after her meeting with Fen’Harel, Deirdre often wondered if it had all been a dream. If her promise had been an illusion, a nightmare born of all of her most painful memories, coalescing in the shadows and stalking her like a wolf in her sleep. But then she would look at her hand, at the five fingers, and at the absence where her wedding ring had been, and a chill would run down her spine.

                It was not an illusion.

                It was not a nightmare.

                It was real, and she was bound to it.

                As the months wore on, she began to wonder if the Dread Wolf would be true to his threat. Would he really target the people she loved if she did not go to him willingly? Was he really capable of such violence? She remembered Solas, the gentle apostate who helped tend to the wounded, and who quietly reminded her of the need to notify the families of fallen soldiers. Was he really capable of harming the people he had once known, and called his friends? For a time, she would be overcome by these memories, certain that his threats were empty – that the man she had known and loved would never be capable of such an act, and her heart would begin to flutter, like a bird rustling its feather against the bars of a cage, and she would begin to think that she was free.

                But then other memories would creep back to her, and doubt would spread through her heart like a plague. She thought of the countless dead at the Conclave: the lives cut brutally short, the families shattered, the heartache and destruction cut like a wound across the land, and how, all along, it was _Solas_ who had been responsible for it. _Her_ Solas – who, despite his guilt, had been calm and collected in the aftermath, utterly detached from the devastation he had wrought, regarding her curiously on a cold night in the mountains and telling her his name. (“ _If there are to be introductions_ …”)

                In the end, could she trust that the man she had called her lover would place enough value on the lives of the people she loved that he would spare them in his pursuit of getting what he wanted? What incentive did a man who planned to destroy an entire world have to show mercy on anyone? What concern was it of his whether or not they were dear to her? In his eyes, they had already ceased to exist, so what reason did he have to let them live?

                In the end, she always came to the same conclusion: she could never know with certainty whether or not the Dread Wolf would be true to his threats, but it was not a risk that she was willing to take. She would not risk the lives of the people she loved based on her own selfish desires.

                She would not risk the life of Dorian, who had been her unwavering friend through so many years, or of Cassandra, who had been a pillar of steadfast resolution since the fall of Haven. Not the life of Leliana, whose back had broken for her in another time, or of Sylaise, who had risked the ire of the Dread Wolf by staying with her. Not the life of Josephine, whose shrewdness was outweighed only by her kindness, or of her husband, who loved her despite the fact that she did not deserve him.

                She would go to the Dread Wolf. She had to.

                In the meantime, she kept her plan hidden, spending countless days secluded in her study and trying to create a world where she did not exist. She told the others that she was writing diplomatic missives, but in reality she was documenting her wishes for how her assets should be distributed after her departure. All of her money was to go to Skyhold, to maintain the stronghold as a self-sustaining community for the people who lived there. Her artifacts would go to Sylaise, her books would go to Dorian. Her clothes would be sold, and the proceeds donated to alienages. Everything else would go to her husband, to do with it what he would as he made a new life without her.

                And all the while, her companions remained oblivious of her preparations, convinced that nothing had come out of that night in the Fade besides the return of a friend after an act of mercy from the Dread Wolf.

                All of them, that is, except for Sylaise.

                Sylaise had surprised her that night with the quickly-crafted lie she told the others upon their return. “Fen’Harel released me, Commander Cullen,” she said earnestly. “I begged for his forgiveness, and he let me go. I am exiled from his organization, and I am now seen as his enemy, but he let me go. I didn’t even know that Dorian and the Inquisitor were looking for me. I met the Inquisitor while wandering the Fade and waiting to wake up. She led me back to Dorian, and then we came back here.”    

                She had turned her gaze to Deirdre, her eyes luminous and her expression solemn. “Isn’t that right, my Lady? Isn’t that what happened?”

                And Deirdre, overcome with weariness, had been unable to do anything but nod. “She is right, Cullen,” she had echoed softly. “That is all that happened.”

                While they had not spoken of what really took place that night, Deirdre knew that Sylaise suspected. She felt the woman’s gaze on her when she thought she was not looking, watching her as she interacted with her husband, studying her movements as if searching for a crack in her veneer. It made Deirdre’s skin crawl – not the fact that she was suspicious, but the fact that she was right.

                Finally, the other woman approached her, knocking on the door of her study and quietly asking to speak with her. Deirdre paused before replying through the closed door, sliding the document she was writing into the bottom drawer of her desk and locking it.

                “Yes, Sylaise. You can come in.”

                The woman seemed nervous, her fingers playing with the bottom of her long braid as she seated herself.

                “Well, Sylaise, what would you like to speak to me about?”

                “I want to talk about Fen’Harel, my Lady,” she blurted. “I want to talk about what happened in the Fade.”

                Deirdre drew in a breath. “Very well,” she said calmly. “Let’s talk.”

                “I understand, now, what must have happened between you. That you loved him. That his duplicity was more than that of an ally, or even a friend. You let him into your heart, and he betrayed you.”

                Deirdre looked down at the surface of her desk. “You are correct, Sylaise. I loved him very much.”

                The other woman was silent for several moments, until she let out a deep sigh.

                “My Lady, I’m so sorry for what you have been through. It’s a burden you should have never had to bear.”

                Deirdre lifted her eyes to meet the woman’s gaze.

                “It would be good to say that I regretted it,” she said quietly. “That if I could go back, knowing what I know now, I would do things differently. That I would spurn him, and call him my enemy. But it would be a lie. There were signs of the truth all along, but I did not see them. I loved him, and I trusted him, and as a result, I overlooked the gaps in his stories, the irregularities in his personality, and I accepted him for what he was. And the truth is, I would do it all again, exactly the same way, with all the same sorrow and heartbreak, rather than part with a single memory.”

                Sylaise frowned.

                “My Lady, do not be misled by your memories. The man you called Solas is not real. He is an illusion, a fiction created by the Dread Wolf to gain your trust, and to control you. Do not doubt it for a moment. The Dread Wolf is a master manipulator. When I was an agent in his ranks, he crafted an entire story for my life that was specifically designed to play upon your sympathies and weaknesses. He knew exactly what I had to do and say to make you care for me.” She paused, wringing her hands in her lap. “My Lady, Sylaise was an invention, and Solas was the same.”

                Deirdre did not respond, and looked away.

                “My Lady, you must forget the man you called Solas. You must detach yourself from those memories, or you will never move past them. You must allow yourself to appreciate what you have now – your home, and your people, and your husband. Fen’Harel has played puppeteer with your life quite long enough already. It is time for you to take back the strings.”

                Deirdre felt her stomach churn at the woman’s words, at the fact that she had so calmly and baldly stated the truth of all her greatest fears. In spite of herself, she found herself protesting. “Surely it was not _all_ an invention, Sylaise. I knew him for many years. We spent a great deal of time together. Certainly there were moments when he was honest and open with me.”

                The other woman’s eyebrows creased, and her eyes were soft. She rose to her feet and placed her hand over Deirdre’s, and Deirdre felt herself wither under the weight of her pity.

                “No, my Lady. There were not.”


	5. Midnight Considerations

                The golden-haired man sat silent at his desk, his elbows resting on the dark wood and his head in his hands. Wind howled outside the tent where he passed the night, shaking the thick fabric walls and screeching out in lonesome howls. It was snowing, and the man’s breath was visible as he let out slow, even breaths.

                A woman was sleeping on the bed in the corner, stirring occasionally and letting out soft sighs, but the golden-haired man did not hear her. He was not thinking about the woman in the bed, or the love that they had made only hours earlier. He was not thinking about the keening wind, or the fact that he had not slept a full night in nearly a year.

                He was thinking about his wife.

                A piece of paper rested on the desk beneath him, the creases where it had been folded and re-folded nearly worn through. On it, in heartbreakingly familiar handwriting, his wife had written to tell him that she was leaving him, and that she would never come back. That she was sorry for the pain she had caused him, and that she hoped he would be able to make a happy life without her. That her leaving was the best choice for both of them. That, without her, he could be free. She did not say where she was going, but the Commander was able to guess.

                She had gone to Solas. Gone to the blue-eyed elf who had left her when she needed him most, who had betrayed her, and who had threatened to destroy everything that she held dear, but who still seemed to have an iron grip around her heart.

                The Commander had read the letter so many times he had the words memorized. He could imagine his wife as she wrote them, perched at her desk with her brow creased in concentration as she slowly and meticulously formed the letters. She had had to re-learn her penmanship after Solas took her right arm from her, and the Commander had watched her struggle when she thought no-one was looking, fighting with the unfamiliar limb to make it move with the same flow and grace over the page as its one-time mate had done. He had longed to help her, to offer to write the passages himself, but he knew better. He had learned long ago that his wife would let no-one fight her battles for her, no matter what the cost. It was one of the things he loved about her.

                He could also imagine his wife speaking the words — averting her eyes, biting her lip, reaching out to touch him, but then thinking better of it, shrinking back into herself the way she always did when she was hurting. She had a way of keeping a distance between herself and other people, an invisible wall that she only let down amongst the chosen few who had earned her trust. He imagined that, as she spoke the words, he would suddenly find that wall between them again, and he would do no better getting through to her if she stood before him than he was able to now, without the slightest idea where she was, and only the letter to speak to him.

                The letter had been a major part of his life every day since his wife’s disappearance, but somehow it affected him differently every time he read what she had written there. Sometimes it made him angry, filling him with a rage and frustration so powerful that he wanted to tear the paper apart. Other times he was overcome with anguish, staggering forward and passing his hand over his eyes, halted mid-stride by the realization that he might truly never see her again. Other times, jealousy ate away at him like an illness, making him think about his wife’s lover, who was in all likelihood at her side now, touching her, kissing her, and making her cry out with pleasure.

                The Commander grimaced at the thought, pressing his fist against his mouth and staring at the entrance to his tent. When he made love to the woman in the bed hours earlier, he had done so hoping that the act would drive his wife from his mind — that, through the power of sheer lust, he could force himself to forget her. The other woman had clung to him, kissed him, straddled him, and cried out in his ear, but still, it had not worked.

                It had not worked, as it had never worked. No matter the woman that he held in his arms, it was his wife whose voice he imagined in his ear, his wife whose toes he imagined curling in pleasure, his wife he imagined kissing his neck and smiling.

                His wife who had left him, and said that she would never come back.

                The man let out a deep groan. Since taking over as interim leader of the Inquisition, he had made it the sole goal of the organization to find her. Now, it had been nearly a year, and with the search presenting both a drain on resources and an impediment to the completion of other Inquisition business, there were those among his companions who told him that he ought to give it up. Most days, he simply glowered at the individual foolish enough to make such a suggestion, but lately his resolve was weakening. And on this snowy night, exhausted and utterly alone, the Commander began to wonder if they might be right.

 

***

 

                When Cullen opened his eyes again, it was not to the sight of the thick fabric walls of his tent, or to the sound of the lonely wind keening outside. Instead, it was to the surface of his old desk in the tower at Skyhold, where a tray of food had been placed carefully near the edge. He blinked and lifted his chest off of the desk, still groggy, when he heard a voice.

                “Desks are no place for sleeping, Commander.”

                Suddenly, he was fully awake. It was the Inquisitor.

                He looked across the room and there she was, seated in a chair by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, and gazing at him.

                “Inquisitor!” he blurted, and she began to rise.

                “Hello, Commander,” she said quietly, lowering herself to her knees by the fire. Using the blanket to protect her hands, she reached for a lidded metal pot resting in the hearth, carrying it carefully to the table and placing it on the tray of food. Cullen looked up at her.

                “You brought me dinner,” he said quietly, cursing himself inwardly for stating the obvious. He always managed to make himself sound like a fool around her. But she didn’t seem to notice, pushing the tray towards him and meeting his gaze.

                “Yes! I brought you dinner. I… I heard you had not eaten.” Her voice was very quiet, and she did not seem like herself. He studied her for a moment, watching as she lowered her eyes to the tray, and thought again how different she looked without the markings on her face. They had been gone for nearly two months now, but still he was adjusting to the look of her, to the startling directness of her eyes without the ochre-colored flourishes that used to curl above them.

                “Thank you, Inquisitor. You… you didn’t have to do that,” he said after a moment, uncertain what else to say. For a moment, her eyebrows creased, and she looked like she was about to speak. Instead, she snapped her gaze back to him abruptly and gave a vibrant smile.

                “Of course I didn’t, Commander! But somebody had to see to it that you ate something today. You’re as likely to die from starvation locked in this tower as you are to fall in the battlefield.” Her demeanor had changed to one of light-hearted cheerfulness, but the Commander was not fooled.

                “Inquisitor, are you alright?” he asked suddenly, and she stared at him.

                “What do you mean, am I alright? Of course I’m alright!” she said quickly, looking away and lifting the lid of the pot she had placed on his tray. “I simply wanted to make sure that you-” she cried out abruptly when the heat of the metal spread through her fingers and dropped the lid, which fell down on to the desk with a loud crash. Cullen was on his feet in an instant, and he had nearly reached for her before he stopped himself. Through force of sheer will, he kept his arms at his sides and watched as she let out a curse and brought the burned fingertips to her mouth. Her eyes were shining.

                “Don’t worry, Inquisitor,” he said, grasping for words that would comfort her. “Solas can heal those burns for you.”

                She looked up at him, and a strange look came over her face. “Solas?” she repeated, and he nodded uncertainly.

                “Y- yes, Inquisitor. Solas. He is very skilled in healing magic, as you know.”

                She scarcely seemed to hear him. She had let the injured hand fall to her side and was staring at the fire, shaking her head slightly and laughing. “Solas. Of course. Solas can heal me,” she said quietly, and an odd smile spread across her face.

                “Inquisitor, are you sure you’re alright?” he asked again, resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to reach across the desk and touch her. She was silent for a moment before she returned her gaze to his, and Cullen felt his breath catch. She had never looked at him that way before.

                “Cullen, I-”

                Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and the Inquisitor stiffened.

                “ _Andraste’s tits_!” she breathed. “Here I am, blathering on, and you doubtless have a hundred other things to do. I’m sorry, Commander. I will leave you now.”

                She moved towards the door, and Cullen felt a pain in his chest. He wished again that he could reach for her, but instead he watched her stride across the room until he finally managed to speak. “Inquisitor, wait. What were you going to say?”

                She stopped, looking down at her hands as they played nervously with the fabric of her tunic, and took a deep breath. “I… I was simply going to say that your promise has brought me an enormous amount of comfort these last few days. I… I know that you did not want to make it, but I cannot tell you happy I am that you did.”

                Cullen resisted a grimace at the thought of that promise, and of the unthinkable future it foretold.

                “Inquisitor, about that promise. I-”

                “Please,” she said quickly, raising a hand to silence him. “Don’t go any further.”

                There was another knock at the door, louder this time.

                “Just give me a minute!” he thundered, and all was silence on the other side of the door.

                “I… I also wanted to apologize. I know that I have not been myself lately, Cullen, and I am so sorry for that. And I…” She paused, and the Commander realized that she was trembling. She let out a nervous laugh, fluttering her hands. “This… this is the hardest part for me to say, but it is also the most important.” She let out a breath. “I… I wanted to say thank you, Cullen, for never giving up on me.” She was still looking at her hands. “Even when I deserved it.”

                “Inquisitor, I-”

                There was a knock again, and, this time, a voice.

                “Cullen, you said midnight! You promised you would be done working by then! Please, it’s freezing out here!”

                Cullen felt his stomach clench, and he watched as the Inquisitor drew back into herself. Her back straightened, her shoulders pressed back, and he could practically see the veil being drawn over her eyes. She had blushed at the sound of the woman’s voice.

                “I’ve stayed here far too long,” she whispered, her voice sounding distant. “I am sorry to have interrupted your evening, Commander.”

                “Deirdre, you don’t have to leave,” he murmured, stepping towards her. She let out a short laugh.

                “Stay here, and keep the Commander from his lover? Even _I_ am not that selfish,” she said with a pained smile. She paused for a moment before adding, as if to herself, “Despite all evidence to the contrary.”

                Shaking her head abruptly, she stepped into the shadows beside a bookshelf and gazed out at him. “Goodbye, Cullen. Go to the door, and I will slip out without being seen. She will never even know that I was here.”

                Cullen nearly shouted with frustration, but before he could speak another word, the heavy door creaked open, and he looked over.

                “Cullen?” his lover asked, staring at him from the doorway.

                When he looked back, the Inquisitor was gone.

 

***

 

                The Commander’s head snapped up from the desk, and this time his waking was met with the sound of the wind, and the creeping cold of the tent. He let out a groan, and his head fell into his hands. The dream had been so vivid, he had felt as though he had truly woken in the past and relived the memory of that night. He remembered what his wife had told him about tricks of the Fade, and the longing for her was so strong that he felt it in his very core.

                “Deirdre,” he whispered, his breath frosty in the chill air. “Where are you?”

                He listened to the shrill cry of the wind, and a voice came to him.

                “I… I wanted to say thank you, Cullen, for never giving up on me.”

                Slowly, the Commander rose from the desk, taking a deep breath and gazing at his wedding ring.

                He would not call off the search efforts.

                He would not accept the advice of those who told him to forget her.

                She was his wife, and he loved her. He would not give up on her.

                He would never give up on her.

 


	6. Journeys

                The only person who seemed utterly uninterested in contributing to the speculation about the relationship between the Dread Wolf and the Inquisitor was Abelas, the solemn-faced elf marked with the _vallaslin_ of Mythal who had become a close confidant of Fen’Harel’s since joining the ranks. He and the Inquisitor knew one another, it appeared, as the first time that she saw him in the fortress her eyes had widened in shock, and she had spoken his name as if she could not quite believe that her lips were forming the word. “ _Abelas_?” she cried, and he had nodded.

                “How have you fared since drinking from the Well of Sorrows?” he asked her, and her face had fallen.

                “I regret that I have not been a more worthy vessel.”

                In fact, Abelas was the only person in the the Dread Wolf’s organization besides Fen’Harel himself who seemed to have any interest in speaking to the Inquisitor. While Abelas had not bothered to get to know anyone else in the Dread Wolf’s ranks, he and the Inquisitor seemed to develop an odd, halting form of friendship, and a strange dynamic began to form between Abelas, the Inquisitor, and Fen’Harel. Abelas saw to it that certain needs were fulfilled when the Dread Wolf was occupied with his lover, and in exchange he was trusted to keep an eye on the Inquisitor during the times when Fen’Harel began, at last, to resume his duties.

                And so it came to be that after two seasons in which the Inquisitor seemed to have pulled herself from the waking dream where she had spent her first several months with Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf at last recommitted himself to his mission. He began leaving on trips that varied in length from a few days to several weeks (sometimes bringing the Inquisitor with him, but more often leaving her behind), and his followers began to wonder breathlessly if Fen’Harel had returned to them. For when he parted from his lover, when he closed the door to their quarters behind him with her still inside, placing his hands flat against the dark wood before turning to face his gathered attendants, the unfamiliar softness was gone from him. Once again, he was cold, impassive, and powerful. Once again, he was the Dread Wolf. The agents who accompanied him on his journeys told stories after their return about the Dread Wolf’s behavior during his absence from the stronghold. They said that he was tense, and curt. That he spoke little, and was focused with deadly clarity on the tasks at hand. They said that there were no smiles, no moments of ease, and never any laughter. But the important fact remained that, when he was away from her, the Dread Wolf was as fully committed to his cause as he had been before the woman came. He had not forgotten who he was, or what he planned to do. _She_ had distracted him, and made him pretend to be who he was not. _She_ had waylaid his attentions, and prevented him from staying true to his mission. _She_ was the cause of all their suffering.

 

 

                Whenever the Dread Wolf was absent from the fortress, it was understood by everyone within his ranks that Abelas was the Inquisitor’s unspoken but ominously powerful bodyguard. They all knew better than to lay a hand on the woman they had grown to despise, or to do anything but serve her dutifully. But Abelas did not have the Dread Wolf’s zeal for ensuring that the woman received only the highest level of treatment, and as a result Fen'Harel's followers more or less abandoned her in their master's absence. They knew that they were taking a risk by doing so, but in the end they trusted in Abelas to see to her upkeep. They served the Dread Wolf, they reasoned. Not her.

                And when those few individuals who saw her during the Dread Wolf’s absence noticed that she seemed to be fading, her skin growing pale and her face shadowed, they all silently hoped it was an illness that would take her swiftly and quietly before Fen’Harel’s return, so that their home could be their own again. So that Fen’Harel could be their own again, and they would no longer be forced to share him with a woman who did not deserve him.

 

***

 

                There were times when the Dread Wolf would depart on missions that he deemed too dangerous for her company, and Deirdre would find herself alone and unable to use his presence as a distraction from her inner turmoil. And it was then, when faced with the reality of her isolation in a hidden stronghold in a location that was unknown to her, that her memories began to take hold of her, and she would begin to wander, isolating herself and trying not to be dragged into darkness. The voices of the Well of Sorrows would begin to speak, then, and it would be as if all the years she had spent learning how to silence and suppress them had been for nothing. And as her stomach began to churn and she began to feel the chilly breath of anguish creeping down her neck, she would think of her husband, the golden-haired man who had picked her up from the rubble of her sorrow in the months leading up to her fight with Corypheus and reminded her of all that was good in the world. She would remember how he had stripped her of her armor, mentally and physically, and lovingly tended to every aching limb, until she emerged from the shadows of her doubt and self-loathing as a stronger, wiser, and better person. He had been a beacon of sunlight in a world that had come to seem to her as nothing more than caverns and darkness, and she had not understood what she had done to deserve his goodness. She would think of him, and of the way she had abandoned him, and wonder what he must be thinking, and feeling, and whether he had found someone to replace her, and she would be crippled by her sadness and regret, wondering what he must think of her. Had he guessed where she was? Had he believed the letter she had left him, telling him that his wife had left him willingly? Did he accept that his beloved wife had voluntarily abandoned her husband to spend her life with a creature who planned to single-handedly exterminate every being in the world?

                During these times, her appetite would leave her, and she would move about the fortress like a wraith, speaking to no-one. Abelas would dine with her in the mornings and the evenings (checking in on her per an assignment from the Dread Wolf, she suspected), but she often went several days without speaking to another soul. She watched the seasons change outside her window (it had been spring when she had come to him, and now the fortress gardens were covered in snow) and wonder whether she had become the worst version of herself. Other times, she would walk outside, unaccustomed to idleness, feeling oppressed by the weight of her ineffectiveness, her lack of goals, and the endless stretch of days that rolled out in front of her, in which she would find herself fighting and losing the same emotional battles again, and again, and again, until finally they would consume her.

                The Dread Wolf would come back to her, eventually, but she would not fully recover what she had lost in the time that he was gone. Slowly, painfully, he would pull her back out of her isolation, but he was never able draw her as far out into the light as she had been in the time before. And as a result, she began to fade, bit by bit. She would feel the eyes of the Dread Wolf’s attendants upon her when she emerged from his quarters, assessing her, doubting her, and she could not blame them for their judgment. In their place, she likely would have thought the same. She was not proud of the person that loving him had made her become.

                When he returned from his journeys, her lover would notice her declining health with concern, attempting his own regimen of healing magic and then, after finding that unsuccessful, calling upon an endless stream of mages and healers who would inspect her with eyes that made her understand that she was nothing more than a problem to be solved, a distraction from Fen’Harel’s glorious vision that needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible. None of them ever spoke to her of her condition (she suspected that they were only to discuss that information with the Dread Wolf), so after their inspection they would give her a small bow and leave without a word, and she would be left wondering what they had seen. She had always been a hardy person, very rarely ill, and as a result she was not accustomed to her invalid state. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. And she would see the creases of pain and worry that marked her lover’s face and would have no response to them but to step into the circle of his arms and try to drown out the world for as many blissful moments as she could until her memories caught hold of her again.

 

 

                One day near winter’s end, the Dread Wolf told her that he was leaving. That he planned to travel a great distance to locate someone that he believed might be able to help her, and that he might be gone upwards of a month.

                When her voice warbled with sorrow, he caught her hand and told her in an unsteady voice that he could not bring her along in her current state – that she was too delicate, that it was not safe, and that he would come back to her as quickly as he could. And so she stood, mute as a ghost, as he made his preparations to leave, and when he leaned in to kiss her goodbye she did not raise her face to his, already feeling suffocated by his absence. When she did not return his kiss, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his cheek against her hair, and she found that he was trembling.

                “Hang on, _vhenan_ ,” he murmured, and she realized distantly that she could feel the wetness of tears in her hair. And then, he was gone.


	7. My Lover's Keeper

                “You’re looking awfully morose this evening, darling.”

                Deirdre gave a start at the sound of Dorian’s voice echoing from the other side of the chamber, turning in her chair by the window to take in the sight of him striding across the room. It was the tenth month since she made her promise to Fen’Harel, and every day had become a trial.

                “If you’d like, I can try to find a musician who can play some melancholy music for us, to further set the mood.”

                Deirdre gave a small smile at her friend’s humor, turning her eyes back to the window. “Thank you, Dorian, but I think that the rain is doing a perfectly fine job of that.”

                Dorian heaved a great sigh. “Indeed,” he said, settling into a chair beside her.

                They sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the sound of rain drumming against the window, until at last Dorian spoke again.

                “I probably don’t even need to ask you this, but – this is about Solas, isn’t it? Or, ‘Fen’Harel,’ or whatever it is he calls himself these days.”

                Deirdre felt her stomach knot. Had her friend really read her so easily – was her attempt to hide her plan an exercise in futility? Or was she simply so predictable that everyone in her life now knew that, whenever she was melancholy, all roads inevitably led back to the blue-eyed elf?

                She wasn’t sure which option was more painful.

                “I…I’ve been thinking about how simple things seemed, before Corypheus fell. At the time, every member of the Inquisition – including myself – had their role, and we all had one shared goal. I was the weapon needed to defeat our enemy. The Commander was the faithful soldier. Cassandra was the steadfast warrior. Josephine was the shrewd diplomat. The Iron Bull was the spirit of our foot soldiers. You were the witty mage who always came through in a pinch. Vivienne was the heartless politicker. And Solas…” She trailed off, looking down at the emptiness where her right hand had been. “Solas was simply a good man with a bad temper.”

                She paused, but her friend remained silent, regarding her.

                “Dorian, I would give _anything_ to go back to that world of black-and-white, and to escape from this eternal gray area we now tread – this world where none of us are storybook cut-outs, and everyone has their own agenda…" she trailed off, feeling her brows draw together. "This world where Solas is the heartless enemy, and Vivienne divine.”

                Dorian gave a small smile, and spoke at last. “Ah, you did loathe Vivienne, didn’t you?” he asked, and Deirdre grimaced.

                “I did. I was a fool. She was the only person who could have warned me about Solas, but I kept her at arm’s length for fear of her trying to manipulate me.” She let out a quiet groan. “The irony.”

                “Deirdre, no matter how much you wish it, you cannot remake the past, or its mistakes. It is an exercise in futility. You had good reason for feeling the way that you did, at the time, and you didn’t know the things that you know now. You weren’t the only one who was taken in. All of us were fooled.”

                “But how does a person move past that kind of betrayal?” she asked quietly. “How can we ever learn to trust the way we did before, when our capacity for trust has been used as a weapon against us?”

                While Deirdre did not speak his name, both she and Dorian knew that her question was no longer about Solas alone. Dorian leaned forward in his chair and looked down at his hands as well, his face now marked by its own sadness.

                “Did they ever really love us, Dorian? Or were we simply tools to them?”

                Dorian sighed.

                “Whether they loved us or not, Deirdre, it doesn’t change the fact that, in the end, they loved no-one as much as themselves.”

                Deirdre bit her lip. “I’m sorry for forcing this on you unexpectedly, Dorian. I’m sure this is the last thing you wanted to talk about on a rainy evening.”

                Dorian leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. “I won’t pretend that this is my favorite subject, but I think it’s a necessary thing for both of us to work through.” He paused for a moment, as if deliberating on how best to phrase his next thought. “Deirdre, you know all the details of own my fabled heartbreak and betrayal, but I still know nearly nothing about yours. You’ve never talked about it, and I’ve never asked, and I’m starting to think that that was a mistake. I think you’ve been hiding from your memories of that time. I don’t blame you, but- you have to realize that you’ll never move past them if you don’t confront them. ”

                Deirdre did not respond at first, feeling her heart splinter at the thought that, in a few months’ time, she herself would add to this man's fabled history of betrayals – this time, not at the hands of his lover, but at the hands of the one he thought to be his dearest friend.

                “Ask whatever you wish, Dorian,” she said finally. “There is little point in keeping secrets now.”

                “When did you and Solas end your… whatever it was that you were doing?”

                “ _We_ didn’t end it, Dorian. _He_ ended it, shortly after our return from the Temple of Mythal. Do you remember the first morning that I appeared without my _vallaslin_? It had happened that night. We left Skyhold for the evening, and he told me that my _vallaslin_ were actually slave markings, and offered to remove them for me. When he was done, he let me know that… that whatever it was that we were doing could no longer continue. And then he left.”

                Dorian let out a scoff. “That sounds like Solas,” he said with a sigh. “And, meanwhile, none of us had any idea. You poor thing. You put on such a strong face.”

                “I had no choice but to put on a strong face, Dorian,” she said quietly. “People depended on me. It was not their fault I was cast off by my lover. I couldn’t let them down.”

                “Oh, Deirdre,” he said sadly. “It all makes so much sense now. The tension of those months after you lost your markings – the fact that you disappeared, and the awful conversation that took place afterward.” He shook his head, his usual shield of sarcasm and cynicism utterly absent. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” he said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “But, then, there were more pressing matters at hand – like where in all of Thedas you had gone, and why you had disappeared without taking anyone with you.”

                Deirdre felt her brows crease. “What are you talking about, Dorian? The conversation between whom?”

                He eyed her.

                “You mean neither of them ever told you?”

                She shook her head, and he gave a pained expression.

                “Deirdre, I’m really not sure if I’m the right person to tell you this…”

                She continued to stare at him, and he took a deep breath.

                “After you disappeared, Cullen called an emergency meeting of all your friends and advisors in the Inquisition asking that they lend their help in carrying out a search mission. Everyone was in full support, and we had laid out plans for which groups would travel to which areas to search for you. We were nearly ready to depart by the time Solas finally arrived, but everything came to a halt when he did.”

                “Why?”

                “Because Cullen asked Solas to lend his assistance searching for you in the Fade, and Solas refused.”

                Deirdre felt her stomach clench. This was a piece of the story she had never heard from either of her lovers. “Did Solas say why he refused?”

                “Of course he did. In typical Solas fashion, he made us all feel like fools. He said that he would not lend his support to a farcical ‘rescue’ mission for a woman who had made a conscious and independent decision to leave. He said that you had left on your own because you needed time to yourself, and that you did not want to be found.”

                Deirdre swallowed at the words, spoken at a time when she had thought herself nothing more to Solas than a regret.

                “Several of us were moved by what he said. We knew that you hadn’t been kidnapped, and it did seem rather selfish to go after you and drag you back to Skyhold under duress. But Cullen… Cullen did not agree. He said that every minute you spent out there on your own was another minute when a terrible fate could befall you, and that if Solas was not compelled to help with the search it was not because looking for you was unethical, but because he simply didn’t care about you as much as the rest of us did.”

                Deirdre drew in a sharp breath. “What did Solas say to that?” she asked.

                Dorian grimaced at the memory. “He said that the last time he had checked, you were not a child… and that Cullen was not your keeper.”

                Deirdre pressed her hand against her eyes. “Poor Cullen…” she said quietly. “That must have pained him deeply.”

                “I believe it did, Deirdre. We were all oblivious about you and Solas, but most of us were well aware how Cullen felt about _you_.” He paused, shaking his head. “It was a painful thing to witness. And after the search party was called off and everyone was stalking around and Cullen started burying himself in the barmaids again… it felt like the Inquisition had suddenly been kicked into a downward spiral.”

                Deirdre let out a groan. “I never should have left,” she murmured. “I had hoped to find peace before I confronted Corypheus, but instead I simply caused more turmoil for everyone.”

                “We are all founts of wisdom in retrospect,” Dorian said kindly, reaching for her hand. “It was what you needed to do at the time, and so you did it. Anyway, I think that perhaps I was wrong about dredging up these old memories. In fact, I– Deirdre, are you crying?”

                Deirdre took a shaky breath, trying to wipe the tears from her face against her shoulder.

                “No, Dorian. I’m fine.”

                Dorian rose from his chair and slid down onto the floor in front of her, keeping one hand in hers and using the other to touch her face. “Deirdre, please, don’t cry! Cullen was upset at the time, but it’s all water under the bridge now. Obviously, he knows that what Solas said wasn’t true. He knows that you love him now. Everything is fine.”

                Deirdre did not respond, and instead she worked to calm herself. She forced herself to take deep breaths, and her tears began to slow. At length, she regained control of herself, and she agreed to accompany Dorian to dinner so that he could attempt to lift her spirits. But as she walked beside him, silent as a wraith, she did not hear a word that he spoke. Instead, she thought only of the story he had told her, and of the things she had not told him: that her tears had not been for her husband alone – that her tears were also for Solas, and for the fact that he had been right. For the fact that he had known her so well, and had fought for her, even after what had happened between them. For the fact that it always so with the two men that she loved: one always searching to rescue her, to shield her from danger, to protect her from the world and its perils, and the other watching calmly as she made her way through that world and all its perils, trusting that she would navigate it safely, confident in her ability to survive.

                That her tears were for the memory of her return from that solitary journey, when she had slipped into Skyhold along with the twilight and found Solas on the stairs, watching her. That she had stopped in her tracks and stared at him, wondering what he was doing there, and he had asked “Did you find what you were looking for, Inquisitor?”

                That she had not understood what he meant, and that Cassandra had been upon her so quickly that she never got to ask him, her friend leading her away with gripping hands that held so tightly that, by the time Deirdre was able to turn, she found that the blue-eyed elf was gone.

                That the Commander’s face had looked like glass as he beheld her in the doorway, and that he murmured “You came back?” in a voice that made it sound as if he couldn’t quite believe it. That he moved as if to touch her face, but drew his hand away at the last moment and averted his eyes.

                That both men loved her, and loved her differently.

                And that, somehow, she had failed them both.


	8. Unanswered Questions

               There was talk among the Dread Wolf’s followers that Abelas was planning something.

               There was no solid evidence to build upon, only observations and assumptions, but as the weeks passed in the Dread Wolf’s absence, suspicions had begun to build. Abelas had sought the company of Fen’Harel’s agents responsible for tracking the movements of the Inquisition, asking questions about their plans and, in particular, the most recent known location of the Inquisitor’s one-time inner circle. Was there any intelligence available on the physical locations of those individuals? Any suggestions as to where they would be in the next several weeks? Unable to refuse him, the agents had provided him all of the information that they had, and Abelas had nodded solemnly before disappearing. He offered no explanation for why he had asked.

               He also began making frequent use of the eluvians, disappearing after sharing a morning meal with the Inquisitor and not returning until late in the day. He spoke to no-one of where had been, or of the purpose of his journeys. The rumors abounded. Some suspected that he and the Inquisitor had fallen in love, and that they were planning a surreptitious escape while the Dread Wolf was away. Others, less fanciful, suspected an alliance between Abelas and the Inquisition, and a promise to return the sad-eyed elven woman to her shemlen keepers. Some wondered if, contrary to what they had thought, Abelas shared their frustration with the increasingly wraith-like creature and was conspiring to remove her from the fortress before the Dread Wolf returned. And some of them – older, and a little more weary of the world and all its machinations – wondered to themselves whether he had somehow taken pity on the woman, and thought to set her free.

               The agents tried to send word to the Dread Wolf about the suspicions, but they were unable to identify his location. He had traveled with a small group, telling no-one where he had gone, and so the messages remained undelivered. Meanwhile, the weeks passed, and everyone waited to see what would happen.

 

***

 

               A month had long since come and gone with no word from the Dread Wolf when Abelas approached Deirdre in her quarters with a strange look in his eyes, and asked if she would like to travel with him to Orlais. She nearly gaped at him. The idea of an escape from the cold walls of the fortress made her heart race with excitement. The idea of seeing other people, of re-entering the world that she had left, of reminding herself that that life continued despite the fact that she felt death growing inside of her, made her scoot to the edge of her seat and lean towards him, her voice sounding husky and unused.

               “ _Yes,_ Abelas. _Please_ – when can we go?”

               She understood that this was to be a private affair, something not discussed with any of the Dread Wolf’s attendants, and in the days before their departure, she wondered whether Abelas had Fen’Harel’s permission to take her outside the fortress, or whether this was an act of his own will.

               And if it really was an act of his own will, she wondered what made him do it.

               In the end, the journey was of the utmost simplicity – she simply stepped through an eluvian stored in one of the towers of the fortress and found herself suddenly cast in the bright white sunlight of Val Royeaux. The eluvian was propped against the wall in a moldering warehouse near the water, with sunlight coursing through the broken beams above. They were surrounded by dusty barrels and empty wooden containers, and once she stepped through the eluvian she watched as Abelas covered it with a coarse, unremarkable looking cloth. Hidden in the corner, it looked utterly nondescript. A well-masked treasure, she thought. Abelas bowed to her, then, and said simply “I will meet you here at the end of the day, my Lady,” before departing. She heard the call of seabirds and the rush of the water, and her heart began to flutter with excitement as she made her way towards the city.

               As she made her way through the crowd, a strange sense of freedom began to wash over her. In this crowded place, surrounded by people blinded by their own narrow and self-guided motivations, she could be anyone. She could be anyone, and no-one. None of them knew her, and none of them cared to know her. She was free.

               Everyone was rushing back and forth to merchants, tittering about an upcoming masquerade, and the most recent scandal at court, and Deirdre was struck by how little the rest of the world had changed while she had been isolated with the Dread Wolf. She moved through the crowd like a shadow, slipping back into her old habit of stealth with the ease and grace of a fox. No-one noticed her, but she noticed everything. She made her way through the merchants, eyeing their opulent wares and enjoying the varied smells of the perfumes and oils, the lush and vibrant colors of the gowns, the soft and supple feelings of the fabrics against her skin. The sensations that surrounded her gave her a brief but invaluable reprieve from the heavy walls of her thoughts, and she felt as though a physical weight had been lifted from her. She was admiring a particularly visionary swath of dark purple velvet when she heard a female voice speaking loudly from across the room. Deirdre had her hood drawn over face, so she could not see the woman who spoke, but she could tell by the way she formed the words that she was beautiful, and that she knew it.

               “Cullen, darling, what do you think of this?”

               Deirdre stiffened at the name, her heart immediately beginning to pound. _It couldn’t be_. What would he be doing _here_?

 _There are plenty of men named Cullen_ , she told herself, trying to keep her breath steady. But when a male voice spoke in return, and she recognized it as the low but warm voice of her husband, she felt her knees go weak. He was with a woman. They were shopping for a gown to wear to the masquerade that everyone was talking about.

               She knew that she should flee – that she should turn her back on him and this woman and spare herself the anguish of seeing him again – but she could not resist the temptation to look upon his face. So she quietly adjusted her cloak, assuring herself that her hood was pulled well forward, before slowly and deftly sliding around the side of the table where she stood, lifting her eyes but not her face to look upon the pair that was speaking.

               She was right – the woman was beautiful, and looked to be younger than Deirdre. A human, full-figured, with rich golden hair. She tried to ignore the sickening lurch in her stomach and turned her eyes to her husband. He was as lovely as she remembered – tall, straight-backed, and broad-shouldered, and she wondered again what a man such as him had ever seen in a woman such as her. He was standing very close to the other woman, and she was smiling up at him with coquettish eyes, and Deirdre was so absorbed by the display that she did not realize that one of the merchant’s assistants had approached and was speaking to her.

               “Madam, please forgive my rudeness, but we do not allow people to wear hooded cloaks in our establishment.”

               She turned her eyes to him, suddenly snapped out of her reverie. “Oh! I- I apologize, sir. I did not know. I- I will leave.”

               “Madam, I must ask that you remove your cloak even before you leave. I don’t mean to give offense, but I can tell by your stature that you are elven, and we have had… problems with merchandise being stolen as of late.”

               “Please – I will leave at once. Can’t I just go?” she kept her voice very quiet, and she realized that he thought her skittishness was a result of her trying to steal something. It had been so long since she encountered blind-faced shemlen prejudice that she had forgotten how to handle herself when faced with it. His eyes narrowed.

               “Madam, either remove your cloak, or I will have to hold you here and have our merchant security examine you for any stolen merchandise,” he said coldly, and she nodded, trying to appease him so that he would keep his voice down. Deirdre was keenly aware that they had already earned the amused glances of several people in the store, but as yet the Commander and his lover were still entirely focused on the gowns. Deirdre looked away from them and back at the man’s face, slowly, slowly lowering her hood and exposing her face before slipping the cloak off of her shoulders.

               “I apologize for causing you concern, sir, but I did not steal anything,” she said softly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving now.”

               She looked again at the Commander to make sure he had not seen her. He had not, as all of his attention was focused on his female companion. Feeling a sickening pain in her stomach at the thought of never seeing him again, she risked one last glance at him. Her gaze lingered a moment too long, and, to her surprise, he suddenly looked up. Their eyes met across the room, and Deirdre felt a shiver pass through her body. His face was overcome with shock, and for a moment they simply stared at each other.

               Then, she snapped out of her reverie and began to move, sliding herself deftly through a small group of people gathered near her and moving towards the exit. She heard a commotion from the other side of the store, with people letting out indignant shouts and the Commander’s lover shouting, “Cullen, what on earth are you doing?!” but she did not dare look back. She slipped out of the store and back onto the streets, gliding into the crowd, pulling her cloak back over her shoulders, and slipping into the shadows. She saw from her peripheral vision that her husband had lunged out into the street and was frantically looking around. For a moment, her heart lurched, and she stepped out of the moving crowd and into the stillness and sunlight, pressing back her hood and waiting until his eyes found hers again. His mouth opened, but she did not stay to hear the words that he spoke, instead gliding back into the crowd and deftly making her way down the streets. She could hear that he was following her, but she knew that he would not find her if she did not want him to. While her husband was a talented soldier and a highly skilled battle tactician, he had always been hopelessly ill-equipped to counter the threat of stealth. Unfortunately, she had failed to account for how much her weakened state would impact her endurance, and she soon found that the exertion of the chase had left her utterly exhausted. Finally, she simply stopped, and she had no energy to resist as her husband’s hand closed around her arm and pulled her away from the crowd and into a narrow alley, positioning her body against a gleaming stone wall. For a breathless moment, he leaned in to kiss her, drawing so close that she could feel his breath on her upturned lips, and she stood on her tiptoes, aching to meet him, before he pulled himself away with a curse and turned his back to her. Deirdre had begun to tremble, overwhelmed by the warmth and familiarity of his body for the brief moment it had moved against hers. She stared at her husband’s back, at the tensed muscles beneath the fabric that he wore, waiting for him to speak. After several moments of silence, she could bear it no longer.

               “How are you, Cullen?” she asked quietly.

               He did not respond immediately, tensing his shoulders and placing one hand flat against the wall he faced. When he did speak, his voice sounded strained.

               “How am I? _How am I_? What kind of question is that?”

               Deirdre bit her lip.

               “I only meant that you seem well. You are healthy, and traveling, and preparing for a masquerade. And you… you are with a beautiful woman. It’s the life I had always imagined for you, Cullen.”

               Again, her husband did not respond, leaning into the hand that pressed against the opposite wall and bringing his other fist towards his mouth.

               “What are you doing here, Deirdre?” he asked at length. He did not turn to look at her.

               “Nothing,” she said honestly, her voice faint. “I am doing nothing.”

               “I’m not sure that I believe you,” he said coldly. “I have spent every day since you left searching for you. I have had the entire Inquisition scour every inch of every abandoned castle and ruined fortress in Thedas, and after nearly a year we have had nothing to show for our efforts but dust and disappointment. And now, after all of that searching, and all of that hoping, to look up and find you staring back at me in a shop in Val Royeaux, like you’ve been within reach this entire time, watching as I’ve been driven nearly mad with trying to find you-” he stopped abruptly and drew in a ragged breath. “No, Deirdre. I do not believe you. It seems much more likely that you are here as a spy for Solas, trying to gather information about the Inquisition by following me around in the place I would least expect to see you.”

               She was so startled by the bitterness in his tone that she let out a small noise, a sad, low sound in her throat. She addressed his back again. “I am not a spy for Solas, Cullen,” she said quietly. Her voice sounded remarkably small.

               “Then what _are_ you, Deirdre?” he shot back. “If you’re not his spy, what are you? His lover? His wife? His accomplice? His-”

               The icy tone of his voice – so accusatory, and so unlike him – brought tears to her eyes, and she cried out before he could finish. “I am _nothing_ , Cullen,” she cried, feeling her shoulders crumple and pressing her face into her hand. “I am _nothing_.”

               She began to weep, quietly, and she heard the sound of her husband’s feet shifting on the gravel. After a moment, he moved to stand in front of her, and after another moment she felt his hands gently pull her hand away and angle her face up towards his. She found that she could not meet his eyes, and so she cast her gaze to her husband’s chest instead, studying the fine fabric of the tunic that he wore. The feeling of his eyes on her face made her heart race.

               “Deirdre, you are not well,” he said sternly, and she nearly laughed through her tears. Her ever-vigilant Commander. “Whatever you are, you should not be here. You should be in bed, and someone should be taking care of you.”

               Struggling to maintain a steady breath, Deirdre spoke. “Oh, Cullen,” she managed. “Des- despite what you must think of me, it is _so wonderful_ to see you again.” When she realized how closely her words mirrored those of the Dread Wolf on the night he had had lured her into the Fade, she began to sob, and she moved to flee until she felt her husband draw her body to his, wrapping his arms around her and encasing her like a warm blanket. The familiar smell and shape of him after so many months was nearly overwhelming. They stayed that way for several minutes, his body gently cradling hers as it shook with sobs, until her husband spoke.

               “ _Why did you leave me, Deirdre_?” he whispered. “How could you do it? Do you love him more than me? Did I do something wrong?”

               She did not respond, and instead she angled her face upwards and stood on her tiptoes, wrapping her arm around her husband’s neck and kissing him. She was determined to absorb as much of him as she could, and after a moment of hesitation he began to kiss her back. He moved to press her gently against the wall behind her, and desire flared between them as hot and vibrant as a flame. But he stopped abruptly and pulled himself away, letting out another curse.

               “Damn it, Deirdre, how can you do this to me? How can you do this to him? _What is wrong with you_?”

               His words rang like the tolling bells of judgment in her ears. Ashamed, and sick with self-loathing, she moved her eyes to the ground. “I’m so sorry, Cullen,” she whispered, feeling herself begin to sway. “I am so sorry for everything.”

               He let out a shaky breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, and the familiarity of the gesture nearly broke her heart. “Did you really go to him willingly, Deirdre?” he asked. “Did you leave me by choice? I will never have peace until I know the answer.”

               She knew what she should do – that she should tell him yes, she left willingly, so that he could finally break himself of his love for her and give himself to someone who deserved him. But she could not do it. Despite everything, she was not strong enough. Instead she simply gazed at him, trying to commit the vision to her memory – the sun, angled across the broad planes of his chest, the stubble on his jaw, his beautiful eyes.

               Slowly, quietly, she began to move along the side of the wall, and she watched his face change as he realized what she planned to do. He took a step towards her, but he would not restrain her by force. He would let her go.

               “That woman is likely waiting for you,” she said softly, giving him a small smile. “And I would not keep the Commander from his lover. Don't you remember?”

               She raised her hand to him in parting - he in the sunlight, and she in the shadows.

               “Goodbye, Cullen,” she murmured, pressing herself back into the crowd.


	9. The Commander

                 Deirdre never felt truly at ease in a crowded room, and the day of the party was no different. On that day in the eleventh month since her promise to Fen’Harel, she endured the noise and the press of unfamiliar bodies because she knew it was her duty, and because she did not want to draw attention to herself. Attention might lead to questions. Questions might lead to answers. And answers might lead to risks that she could not afford to take.

                So, instead of doing as her heart desired and fleeing, she stayed, pressed against the wall and trying to appear nonchalant as she observed the goings-on around her, her eyes often wandering to the small group at the middle of the room. Her husband, standing a head above the rest, flanked by Leliana and Cassandra as they negotiated with a Tevinter magister. Not far away from them stood Josephine, talking in earnest with a nobleman whose name Deirdre could not remember.

                How natural they looked, how at ease they seemed. She could disappear, she thought, and they would continue on as they had always done – making plans, securing agreements, obtaining resources. Had they not been together since before she had ever stumbled upon the scene? Were they not the true Inquisition, and she the outsider who had been thrown into their midst due solely to coincidence?

                _This will all go on without me,_ she told herself, _and I must accept it. They will all go on without me, and they will be fine_.

                Occasionally, she felt her husband’s eyes on her, but she pointedly avoided his gaze, looking instead at the ceiling, or the bookshelves that lined the walls, or the musicians who filled the room with sound. She looked at anything she could, as long as it was not him. She must distance herself from him. She must unthread herself from him, bit by bit, so that her absence would not pain him. She must make herself forgettable, so that he would be able to forget. She knew this, and she had spent the last month trying to put up a wall between herself and her husband, but by the gods, did it make her heart ache.

                She began to play nervously with the laces on her gown, wishing that he would stop looking at her, until at last he did. And then, unaccountably, her mind tripped backwards to another party, long ago, when she had been led away from the stifling pressure of social duties and had made love to Solas in the darkened silence of the living quarters. He, too, had existed outside of the machinations of noble human families, and on that night he had been her escape from them. But he was not present to be her escape anymore. Now, she was on her own.

                “I see you’re still inclined to hide yourself away, my dear.”

                Deirdre managed to hide her surprise at the unexpected voice, and turned in the direction of the beautiful woman who spoke to her. She still was not accustomed to the sight of Vivienne in Chantry attire. _And yet it suits her_ , she thought, _as all clothing suits those who are beautiful_.

                “Yes, Vivienne. I am still inclined to hiding.”

                “Hiding your body, hiding your thoughts, hiding your secrets...” She gave a disapproving click of the tongue. “They’ll find out eventually, you know.”

                Deirdre stiffened. “They’ll find out what?”

                “They’ll find out who it is you’re thinking about, standing here in the corner, and what it is you plan to do.”

                Deirdre withheld a curse. As always, she felt like a foolish, awkward child around Vivienne, her mind racing as she tried to determine whether there was substance to her words, or just an attempt to draw her out. Could she really know?

                “And what is it that you think I plan to do?”

                “I think you plan to return to your blue-eyed apostate, my dear,” she said, raising an eyebrow and giving her a smile. “And I think that your apostate will have you back, one way or another.”

                Deirdre let out a breath. “I am a married woman, Vivienne. I have not seen Solas since he took my arm, and I doubt very much that I will ever see him again.”

                Vivienne raised her eyebrows even further. “Is that so? And yet the Inquisition is bent upon finding him. Tell me, my dear, what will you do, if you are ever able to capture your apostate lover? Will you throw him in a dungeon? Put him on trial? Punish him for his wickedness?” She let out a small chuckle, as much akin to a purr as to a genuine sign of mirth. “Or will you try to convince him to forgo his grand scheme, and simply accept things as they are, for the sake of your love?”

                Deirdre felt her face turn crimson. She felt naked, exposed, and foolish.

                “And, regardless of what you plan to do once you have him – do you truly think he would allow himself to be contained? I should think not. As soon as you had him, he would slip through your fingers. The only thing to be done would be to kill him on the spot, which I do not believe you have the heart to do… although I should think your husband might.”

                She paused, frowning deeply.

                “You are fighting a losing battle, my dear. I think we both know this to be true.”

                “You are saying that my past relationship with Solas prevents me from successfully leading the Inquisition’s efforts to stop him.” Deirdre’s voice was surly, defensive.

                Vivienne lifted her hand and reached across to Deirdre’s cheek, pressing slightly so that she was forced to meet her eyes. For a moment, as Deirdre returned the woman’s gaze, she saw a flash of genuine pity, and she felt her heart falter.

                “What I am saying, my dear, is that there will be no happy ending. There never can be, with men like him.”

                Deirdre tore her eyes away, letting out a sharp breath.

                “Thank you for your advice, Vivienne. I know it was sincerely meant,” she whispered, fighting to blink back tears. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

                She stepped away from the other woman, striding quickly along the wall until she reached the nearest exit. She was scarcely aware of where she was going, knowing only that her feet must keep moving, until she found herself underground, making her way past the servant’s quarters and into the larder that she knew was tucked away at the far end of the hallway. Dorian had shown it to her, once. “I know you like your solitude,” he had said, tweaking her cheek. “Trust me, no-one will find you down here.”

                When he had spoken those words, he had reckoned without the Commander. Which had been, as it always was, a mistake.

                “Let me guess: you’re looking for some delicious Tevinter delicacy to serve to our esteemed guests upstairs? Or, alternatively, you’re trying to _hide_ some delicious Tevinter delicacy from our esteemed guests upstairs, to ensure that their gluttonous fingers never lay a hand on them?”

                Deirdre took a shallow breath, annoyed by her husband’s light-hearted humor. It seemed the harder that she tried to push him away, the more charming he became. “You are correct as always, Cullen. For what other reason could a person have for fleeing a party and taking refuge in the pantry?”

                “Vivienne has that effect on many people, I believe. Not just you.” Her husband’s voice had lost its jesting tone, and it was so kind that she turned to face him.

                “You did not need to follow me down here, Cullen. It’s embarrassing enough that I am here at all, let alone that other people are aware of it. I will be fine.”

                “You are always ‘fine,’ Dee. My hope is that I can help you to be more than fine.”

                “And so you followed me down into the pantry when you should be upstairs, securing resources for the Inquisition’s forces?”

                “You think I should be worried about securing resources after I saw my wife leave the room looking like she was about to be ill? That I should have carried on like nothing had happened? Deirdre, the Inquisition means nothing to me. _You_ are what I care about.”

                “How can you say that? You were a soldier, and a Templar, and the Commander of the Inquisition, far before I ever came into your life. I – I am a recent addition. I am an add-on.”

                She was being cruel, and she knew it, but she could not stop the words from coming. She needed to believe that he would be able to move on without her. These final months were to be the true test of her strength.

                “Deirdre, why are you saying these things? Yes, I was a soldier before I met you – a lyrium-addled, self-loathing wretch of a human being with nothing but work and loveless sex to fill his days. That was no life.”

                “But tending to the imagined hurts of a crippled ex-Dalish woman _is_?”

                Her husband stared at her, his brows creasing above painfully clear amber eyes.

                “Deirdre, you have not been yourself lately. You are trying to hurt me, and I don’t understand why. Please, tell me what’s wrong. I want to help you.”

                She let out a ragged sigh. “I don’t think that you can help me, Cullen,” she said honestly. “I think that I am beyond fixing.”

                “Deirdre,” he said tentatively, speaking as though he were choosing his words very carefully, “I have been thinking – what if we left the Inquisition? What if you and I resigned from our posts, and left our duties behind us, and started a new life as husband and wife somewhere else?”

                She stared at him. “Leave the Inquisition?” she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. “Leave the Inquisition? But where would we go?”

                “I…I thought that we might start a farm in Ferelden. I have money saved, and I have no doubt that there are many people who would be happy to help us secure property, after what you did for them during the battle with Corypheus. We could start again, Deirdre. We could be free.”

                Deirdre’s heart was beating rapidly. In truth, the life he described sounded like something from a dream – the two of them, living in a cottage, tending to crops, gathering fresh eggs and milk in the morning, enjoying simple suppers at night. She had never dared to imagine a future for herself that was not bound to the Inquisition. The life he described sounded simply too wonderful to be real.

                “Deirdre, you’re making a lot of different faces, and I’m not sure what they mean. If you’re thinking about telling me that I’m a fool and that I’ve been a soldier all my life, then I will tell you that while that may be true, I will feel no regret in giving up the life. If you’re thinking about telling me that I know nothing about farming, then I will tell you that I have spent the last year learning about it, reading books about techniques and exchanging letters with farming families back in Ferelden. If you’re thinking about telling me that you are the Inquisitor, and that it is your duty to stay with the Inquisition, then I will tell you that along with being the Inquisitor you are also a woman, and that you also have a duty to yourself and your own happiness. You are a woman who has fought, and toiled, and bled, and suffered, and given far more of herself to the Inquisition than could ever have been reasonably expected. You deserve an escape from this life.”

                Deirdre felt her mouth open slightly, stunned. A year? He had been harboring these plans for a year, and he had not told her?

                Her husband stepped forward, bridging the distance between them and gently cupping her chin with his hand, tilting her head up.

                “You extracted a promise from me a long time ago, Deirdre. Do you remember? A promise to leave the Inquisition, should the unthinkable occur. Well, I made that promise, and I would have stayed true to it, had that awful fate actually taken place. And I was thinking that, in exchange for that promise to leave the Inquisition, I might get a similar promise from you. Will you – will you promise me that you will leave the Inquisition and come with me to give that new life a try? Even if it’s not forever – even if it’s only for a year. Will you make me that promise?”

                Deirdre stared back at him, looking up into his searching, nervous, hopeful gaze, and thought, _Another man who would have me make a promise. I don’t know how many more of these I can afford._

                “I… I will think about it, Cullen,” she said finally. “In truth, it sounds like it could be truly wonderful, but – there are a lot of things to consider. We would have a lot of planning to do, to ensure that things were kept in order after we left.”

                While her words had hardly been a ringing endorsement, she found that her husband’s face had broken into a glowing grin.

                “You mean you’ll actually consider it?” He was practically beaming with happiness. “You would actually be willing to leave the Inquisition and go away with me?”

                Despite herself, Deirdre felt her defenses crumbling. While she was trying to keep her husband at a distance, to detach herself from him as much as possible during these final months, she found herself powerless in the face of such a display. She gave a small smile and reached up to touch his face.

                “Yes, Cullen, I will consider it, although I must confess I’m surprised to hear that you have any money saved. Do you mean to suggest that we’ve been _paying_ you all this time? I’ll have to talk to Josephine about that.”

                The Commander’s eyes brightened further at the jest, at the return of the old flirtatious humor that had always sparked between them, at the resurgence of an old and favorite joke, and gave her a smirk. “Yes, Inquisitor, you have been paying me. Although, last I spoke to Josephine, it was not for my duties as Commander of the armed forces, but rather payment for pleasurable services rendered to the tyrannical Inquisitor.”

                “Oh really? And what if the tyrannical Inquisitor were to say that she has found your services unsatisfactory, and threatened to dock your pay if she does not see a noticeable improvement in services rendered?” Her voice was very quiet, and accompanied now by a smirk of her own. A roguish grin spread across her husband’s features.

                “Then I suppose I will simply have to work harder at it,” he murmured, drawing his face down towards hers.

                As his lips met hers, and Deirdre felt her legs weakening, her heart racing, and her center melting with desire, she thought faintly that anyone observing them would never believe that this was a man she was trying to distance herself from. For who could ever think such a thing, if they saw the way that she clutched at him as he lowered her gently to the floor, one of his hands unlacing the bust of the ridiculous gown that Josephine had convinced her to wear while the other hand was snaking its way up her skirts and into her undergarments, so that within a few moments her head was thrown back and soft sounds were escaping from her throat as her husband took her breasts into his mouth and moved his fingers inside her in a hypnotizing dance? Who could believe that she planned to leave this man, as her fingers worked shakily at the laces of the pants that he wore and she cried out in climax as his fingers slid in and out of her, drawing in a sharp breath as he at last set himself to those cursed laces, and then to the buttons on his tight fitting coat, which she pushed open with trembling fingers before pressing her lips against the broad planes of his chest like a starving creature? Who would believe that she would betray this man, as they watched her slide out from under him, guide him onto his own back, and take him into her mouth in a motion so fluid it was like a dance? Who could believe that heartbreak was in store for the golden-haired man who lay back on the floor of the larder, clenching his fists and letting out husky groans as he felt himself enveloped by the warm and yielding mouth of the woman he loved? Who could believe that there was anything but happiness in the future of two such people, as they watched her move herself over his body, lifting the layers of her skirts around her and settling herself slowly, rhythmically, and deliberately, on top of him, until at last they were one, and they moved against one another in perfect syncopation, like the inner workings of a clock, until the man’s eyes closed, and he looked temporarily transported to another world as he pulled his wife closer to him and poured his love for her into her body?

                Who could think anything but happy thoughts of such a pair? Who could think that darkness haunted their steps? Who could think that a secret festered between them, waiting patiently to devour them both?

                Who could think such a thing, although it was the truth? No-one but herself and Vivienne, she thought bitterly as she rested her head against her husband’s warm chest, breathing in the scent of him and trying not to cry. Herself, and Vivienne, and the blue-eyed elf that waited for her.

                And none of them would ever breathe a word.


	10. Consequences

                There was a tempest in the Dread Wolf’s eyes. He had returned to his fortress, and his lover was nowhere to be found.

                His sudden arrival had come as a surprise for his followers, all of whom scrambled around after his appearance in panicked realization that they had been caught in their breaking of the cardinal rule. No-one had been keeping an eye on the Inquisitor, and no-one knew where she was.

                Abelas was also missing, and once Fen’Harel finally calmed himself enough to hear to the counsel of his agents, he listened with a grim mouth and flashing eyes to the suspicions that had developed in the time he was away.

                “What is the latest time that anyone knows with certainty that she was present in the fortress?” he asked coldly, and the group gathered before him shifted uncomfortably on their feet.

                Abelas had stopped by the kitchens early that morning to collect the Inquisitor’s breakfast, and had claimed he would deliver it himself. No-one had checked in on her throughout the day, because that was not the custom – the only person who looked after her when the Dread Wolf was gone was Abelas. But they could not say this, and, thus, all was silence. The Dread Wolf’s eyes narrowed, and he repeated his question.

                “What is the latest time that anyone knows with certainty that she was present in the fortress?”

                “I… I saw her walking in the garden late yesterday afternoon,” someone offered finally. The Dread Wolf closed his eyes and let out a low breath.

                “Did _anyone_ see fit to check on her between yesterday afternoon and today?” he asked. His voice was dangerously even.

               There was a long, tense silence, until finally someone spoke.

                “We… we do not typically wait on her while you are gone, Fen’Harel,” someone said in a shaky voice. “When you are gone, Abelas tends to her.”

                There was a painful pause.

                “ _Ah_ ,” the Dread Wolf said sharply. “I see. But, as you may have noticed, Abelas is not here.”

                After finding his followers oblivious to his lover’s whereabouts, the Dread Wolf and a small group of his most trusted agents spread out through the eluvians housed in the north tower in search of her. They traveled to all the locations Abelas had asked about during the weeks of the Dread Wolf’s absence – locations where the Inquisitor’s “inner circle” companions might be located. But Abelas had covered their tracks well – there were any number of places where they might have gone, depending on who it was that they had hoped to see. Finally, word came from Val Royeaux – there was no sign of Deirdre or Abelas, but an agent had located the Inquisition’s Commander, now the interim Inquisitor himself, and tracked him for several hours. The golden-haired man was visibly agitated, and he was mobilizing Inquisition forces in Val Royeaux as well as sending dispatches to various members of his organization. The agent had not been able to read the dispatches, but he gathered from what he had observed that the Commander was looking for someone in Val Royeaux.

                At this news, the Dread Wolf’s brow creased, and he turned his back on the people gathered before him. “You are dismissed,” he said in a quiet voice. “I will retrieve her myself.”

                In the end, the search was not a difficult one. As soon as the Dread Wolf stepped through the eluvian in the north tower and into the warehouse in Val Royeaux, he was met with the sight of the Inquisitor sitting beside it, her knees drawn up to her chest and her eyes gazing through cracks in the walls to the sea. Abelas stood near her, and he said nothing of his betrayal when the Dread Wolf met his gaze.

                “Good evening, Fen’Harel,” he said calmly. “My Lady is not ready to go back just yet.”

 

 

***

 

 

                In the hours that passed between her encounter with her husband and her return to the fortress, Deirdre was scarcely aware of what took place around her. Somehow, her feet made their way back to the eluvian, and she settled down beside it like a frightened creature taking refuge in the hollow of a tree. Sometime later, she was aware of the sound of footsteps, and looked up to see Abelas approaching. When their eyes met, she shook her head, and he seemed to understand what she meant.

                Sometime after that, Abelas spoke, offering a compliment for the small gold bracelet that adorned her left wrist and asking if he might examine it. She had nodded, faintly, and extended her wrist without thinking so that he could unclasp it.

                And, sometime after that, the Dread Wolf found them, striding through the eluvian with the grim determination of an experienced hunter. His entire body was tense, and she could tell that he was angry, but she realized with a dull sense of surprise that what she saw reflected in his gaze was not fury, but betrayal – present for only a moment, then gone. Unable to bear it, she simply looked away – first at the ground, then at the Dread Wolf’s hand as he offered to help her up, then at the sea (one last sweet, aching glimpse of freedom), then at the eluvian, and, at last, at the cold, stone walls of the fortress.

                During this time, she was aware that the Dread Wolf and Abelas had spoken, but she had no knowledge of what was said. For her mind was elsewhere, caught in a web of memories, and this time even the Dread Wolf could not free her from it.

 

 

 

                The first time Deirdre realized she had feelings for the Commander beyond those of affectionate friendship took place in the months between the end of her relationship with Solas and her battle with Corypheus. It was a winter night, and she was sitting on the edge of one of the battlements that punctuated the mountain landscape around Skyhold. She was staring at the mountains, thinking about the likelihood that she would die in the battle and wondering what would come of it. Something good, she hoped. A chance to escape the death and destruction that had come to surround her. A freedom from the need to fight. A freedom from the need to hurt others in the name of peace.

                The Commander had found her and asked her to come down, telling her that it was not safe. She nearly laughed at him. She had battled demons, and dragons; had survived time travel, and physical passage through the Fade. Countless creatures had died at her hand. Countless times she had looked death in the face and bested it, and yet here he was, telling her that it was not safe for her to sit calmly and look out into the night.

                “I don’t need your help,” she told him as she moved to climb down. “I’ve done this countless times before.”

                “I know you don’t need my help,” he told her with a sad look in his eyes, “But I’m offering it to you anyway.”

                In that moment, she had been overwhelmed – by his goodness, by the fact that he had found her there, had come to her armor-less and golden in the moonlight – and she had asked him to make her a promise.

                “What would you ask of me, Inquisitor?”

                “If I die, don’t stay here.”

                His hand had moved from the bridge of his nose to cover his mouth and chin, and his brow furrowed.

                “I mean it, Commander. Don’t stay here. You’ll blame yourself, and overwork yourself, and make yourself into a hollow shell. In the end, the fight with Corypheus is mine to win or lose. Mine, and mine alone. No-one else need take that fall, least of all you. You’ve given so much of yourself to the Inquisition already – more than I would have dared ask, and certainly far more than I have deserved. That’s why, if I die, I am asking you to _leave_. Move on from the Inquisition. Know that you have done your job, and done it well, and go to live the life that your hard work has earned you. Go and find your beautiful wife, travel the world, and then settle down with your children, your hounds, and your warm ale by the fireplace. It’s the life that was meant for you.” At some point, her voice had begun to shake. “Please, don’t stay here.”

                “Inquisitor-”

                “Cullen, please. The wife. The children. The fireplace. Promise me.”

                In the end, he made her that promise, although his face was creased and his voice clipped. She was so surprised by how much relief it brought her that for several moments she did not speak, instead simply staring at the man who stood before her and thinking that, had it not been for the Anchor, they might have passed one another in the street and remained strangers for all their days.

                “You’re shivering, Inquisitor.”

                She let out a short laugh. “So I am! It is cold.”

                He studied her for a moment before taking a step forward and lifting his hand.

                “Come down, Inquisitor. Please. Come inside.” She studied the hand that he offered, surprised. He hadn’t touched her since their dance at the Winter Palace. She didn’t know why it seemed significant to her, but it did. After a moment of hesitation, she slipped her hand into his, and she was aware that something changed. For when she accepted the help that he offered, taking his hand and letting the weight of her body and her many burdens be cradled, just for the briefest of moments, as he helped her down from the high place where she stood, she felt it: the warmth, the comfort, the yearning and trembling possibility of what could be.

                She had always been attracted to the Commander (even in their earliest days of mutual dislike), but until that night on the battlement, she had counted her attraction to him as a slightly embarrassing but unavoidable natural occurrence. Unlike many of her people, she had always been attracted to human men as well as elven, and there was no arguing that the Commander was a desirable creature. He drew the attention of many admiring women and men, and Deirdre saw no reason to think that she should be any different. But the nature of the attraction that she felt had either changed, or had simply become apparent to her for the first time, on that night on the battlement. Where before she had felt an easily dismissed physical attraction, supplemented by harmless flirtation, now, without the specter of Solas at the forefront of her mind, she understood her desire to be far deeper, and it shook her to the core.

                She drew away as soon as he set her down, shy and awkward as a girl, feeling guilty for her sudden desire. The Commander had done nothing to invite those sorts of feelings from her, and she felt she was threatening to ruin their friendship by experiencing them. He had never asked anything of her, and yet she felt compelled to place the heaviest of expectations upon him: that he would have any interest in returning the love of someone whose love he had not asked for.

                _Besides_ , she thought, _the women he loves are happy creatures – beautiful women with shining hair, who laugh without bitterness, and dance in taverns by firelight._

                There is no place in his life for someone like you, she told herself.

                She was nervous, and ashamed. After they parted, she spent the next several days trying to avoid him, struggling to suppress her feelings and trying to understand why she had made him make her that promise – where it had come from, seemingly out of thin air on that cold night.

                It was not until several days later, several days of heartache and uncertainty, that she found her answer. That night, she resolved to bring a tray to the Commander’s tower and reveal her feelings to him – to beg his apology for her bluntness and ask if he could ever accept her – but she lost her nerve. She found him asleep at his desk, and he looked so peaceful that she did not have the heart to wake him. Instead, she sat by the fireplace, watching him sleep and becoming so riddled with self-doubt that she wished she had never come at all.

                He could have any woman in Skyhold, perhaps in all of Thedas – a woman who was light-hearted, and beautiful, and merry – what made her think that he would have any interest in _her_? For she was a weary, heartsick, battle-worn creature, small-breasted even for an elf, and she doubted that a single day in her life would pass where her smile was not edged with sadness. She had little to offer him.

                Solas had not wanted her, so why should anyone else?

                Deirdre was in a daze by the time the Commander woke, and when the knock of his lover interrupted their strained conversation, it had felt as though reality itself had banged upon the door.

                _Your love is poison_ , she told herself. _Solas does not want it, and neither does this man._

                And so she had left the Commander’s tower, slipping through the shadows and listening as his lover closed the door behind her. She fled from Skyhold shortly thereafter, telling no-one of her departure, and bringing with her only the small leather knapsack she had carried on that fateful day at the Conclave. And as she moved through the darkness, each step taking her farther and farther away from the people and the burdens she had come to call her own, she finally understood why she had asked the Commander to make that promise, selfish though it was.

                Because she loved him, she realized, and she could not bear to be the cause of a good man’s sorrow.

 


	11. The Kindness of Strangers

                In a ramshackle warehouse near the docks in Val Royeaux, a golden-haired man sat atop a crate in an abandoned corner. There was a conspicuous space of open floor around him in the otherwise cluttered building, but the man seemed more interested in the item in his hands than his surroundings. The moonlight shining into the warehouse through the cracks in the roof and walls bathed everything in a luminous light, making the small gold chain, delicate and simple in his calloused fingers, seem almost ethereal.

                There were moments throughout that harrowing day when he began to think he had imagined the meeting with his wife – that it was a figment of his imagination, a hallucination borne of all his months of longing. He spent hours searching for the eluvian that he correctly guessed she must have used to travel to Val Royeaux, deploying Inquisition soldiers throughout the city to scour attics, cellars, warehouses, and storerooms in search of it. But in the end, they were too late. For when they discovered this warehouse, and found this corner so suspiciously barren, he had realized with clenched fists that that the eluvian that had taken his wife back to the Dread Wolf was long since gone. In his frustration, he reached for a nearby crate, ready to shatter it on the empty ground where the eluvian once stood, until he saw something glimmer in the dust. When he realized what it was, he froze. It was a bracelet.

                But it was more than just a bracelet. It was _her_ bracelet. For the Inquisitor had worn this chain for as long as he had known her, and he had seen it on her wrist that afternoon. In fact, he had never known her to remove it. Which made him wonder – why was it still here? Had it been left as a token, or a message? And, if so, what did the message mean?

                He sat alone in the warehouse for hours, long after the rest of the Inquisition retired, and replayed every detail of the unexpected meeting with his wife in his mind. He studied the delicate chain between his fingers and, as the time passed, a feeling began to take shape. He reflected on the events of the day, thinking about his wife’s shocked expression when their eyes met across the crowded shop; how her face, for the briefest moment, had seemed to light up. He thought about the worrying shadows beneath her eyes, how frail she was beneath the cloak she wore, and the way she had trembled like an autumn leaf beneath his fingers. He thought about the anguished look in her eyes when she gazed at him in the alley, and the way the words she spoke in parting sounded as brittle as glass.

                While he scarcely dared to think it, all of these observations seemed to him to be clues about the answer to a question that had haunted him for nearly a year. A question he had asked his wife, and that she had refused to answer.

                _“Did you really go to him willingly, Deirdre? Did you leave me by choice?”_

                It seemed to him as he sat, hunched alone in the warehouse by the water, that although she had not spoken it, his wife had given him her answer.

 

               

               

                Cullen was up well before dawn the next day. Although scarcely a few hours had passed since his return from the warehouse, he emerged from his guest chambers clear-eyed, clad in his armor and marked with a fierce determination. Once again, he was going on a journey. But this time, his journey would not end until his wife was by his side once again.

                During the night, he had received an urgent message from Leliana – one of her agents had stumbled upon a pair of elves traveling through a remote mountainous region, and after tracking them for several days had learned that the elves planned to join the ranks of Fen’Harel. Once he obtained the location of their final destination, the agent sent word to Leliana, who passed the message along to Cullen with a notice that she had dispatched a team to the region and would meet him there as soon as they arrived.

                All inklings of fatigue vanished from him as soon as he read the letter, and he sent word to a small group of his most trusted soldiers that they would depart at first light. Finally, it seemed, his search was nearly over.

                It was so early that most of the servants were still in bed, but Cullen could tell by the warm light emanating from the stable windows that the stablehands were active within. Once inside, he made his way purposefully to the corner where his horse was stabled, listening to the curious nickering of the creatures that he passed. When he arrived at the stall where his horse was kept, he realized with some surprise that it was still occupied. There was a stablehand within – a bent but spry old man, who was brushing the coat of his horse with surprising energy.

                “Thank you for your help, friend, but I can take over from here,” Cullen told the man, stepping through the gate. “My name is Cullen Rutherford, and I am this horse’s lucky owner. It’s still early yet – let me relieve you of your duties, and perhaps you can get some rest.”

                The man looked over at him, but made no move to stop his energetic brushing. “That’s one of the things about getting old. Don’t sleep much.”

                Cullen shifted on his feet, surprised at the response. “Ah,” he said uncertainly.

                “I know who you are. Know what you’re doing. It’s why I want to make sure this horse gets the best treatment we can offer.”

                “Ah!” Cullen said slowly, trying to balance his desire to be polite with his impatience to get on the road. “I’m flattered, sir, but it’s not-”

                “You’re doing the right thing,” the old man said matter-of-factly, moving to the other side of the horse. “I had to hear a lot of gossip lately about who you were going to dance with at that blasted masquerade. Whether you planned to stay in Val Royeaux. Started to lose faith in you. But you came through.”

                Cullen shifted again, stunned into silence.

                “My son joined the Inquisition early, not long after you moved to Skyhold. He was in a rough patch of his life. Just lost his mother. Headed down a dark path. When you took him in, made him a soldier, gave him something to live for – you saved his life.”

                Cullen drew in a breath, feeling his impatience evaporate.

                “What’s his name?”

                “His name’s Brennan. He’s still at Skyhold, but he writes to me sometimes. Told me when he heard your wife went missing that he knew you’d find her. Said you were a good man, and wouldn’t settle for just any woman. Said she’s not just your wife, she’s your best friend.”

                Cullen looked away, unprepared for the simple kindness of the old man’s words. Instead of trying to convince him to stop his work, he moved forward and began to assist him, checking the horse’s hooves, brushing its tail and mane, and moving in tandem with the older man without speaking. Soon, they were preparing to saddle the horse, and the man began to speak again.

                “When I lost my wife, I thought my heart would break. She was like your wife. She was my best friend. Didn’t have much use for a world that didn’t have her in it. Then I thought I was going to lose Brennan. Heard rumors about a madman trying to kill us all. Didn’t see much point in living at all for a while, so I nearly gave up. But when my son wrote to me about the Inquisition, everything changed. He told me about that elf woman who was willing to die defending people that had never given her or her kin anything besides grief in her entire life. And I thought, maybe there is still good in this world.”

                Cullen paused, leaning his head against the horse’s neck. This man could not know how much meaning his words carried. After so many months of doubting, and heartache – that someone shared his faith in his wife felt like the first warm breeze after an endless winter. He did not know what to say, and the man seemed to understand.               

                "I'd say this horse is ready for the road," he said after a moment, and began to saddle the horse. Soon, it was ready for riding. The old man began to gather Cullen's tools and brushes, moving briskly and in a no-nonsense fashion, until it seemed he would leave without another word. Cullen hesitated, struggling to come up with the right words to say.

                “Thank you,” he said at last, simply, and the old man smiled.

                “You’ll find your wife. Don’t give up. A good woman is always worth fighting for.”

                Cullen nodded, finally finding his words. “I don’t plan to give up. I almost gave up once, and it nearly cost me everything. I won’t make that mistake again.”

                The old man nodded in approval. He opened the gate of the stall, and moved aside as Cullen led his horse out into the morning. The air was brisk, and the sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon. It promised to be a beautiful day.

                Cullen mounted his horse quickly, nodding to the small group that waited for him. It was time for them to go.

                _She’s out there, somewhere_ , he thought as he led them out into the streets of Val Royeaux. _And I am going to find her._

                And, for the first time in nearly a year, Cullen smiled.


	12. Something She Has to Do

                On a chilly spring night in Tevinter, one year to the day since she made her promise to Fen’Harel, Deirdre rose from the bed that she shared with her husband and prepared to bid her unspoken farewells. She had lain awake for hours, listening as her husband’s breathing changed from the restless uncertainty of waking into the heavy, even calmness of sleep. She had planned out every step of her escape, repeating them as a mantra in her head to prevent herself from losing her nerve. _Get out of bed. Kiss him goodbye. Place the letter on the desk. Go downstairs. Find the pack you’ve hidden in the kitchens. Change into traveling clothes. Leave through the servant’s entrance. Make your way to the street._ She had repeated the steps so many times that, by the time it became necessary for her to carry them out, she felt detached from what she was doing, almost as though she were a passive observer watching from a distance. So when she heard her husband shift, and felt his hand gently reaching for her as she slid out of the bed, she did not let out a startled cry, or break into anxious sobs. Instead, she turned to him, and smiled.

                “Go back to sleep, Cullen,” she whispered.

                “Is everything okay, Dee? It’s the middle of the night." Her husband was bleary-eyed, and she slid onto her knees beside him, cupping his face with her hand.

                “Everything is fine, my heart,” she said. “I just want to check on Sylaise. She is far along with the pregnancy now, and these are very important months for her. This is her first child. I am worried about her.”

                Her husband gave her a soft smile, gently pulling her hand away from his face and kissing her fingers. Deirdre felt remarkably calm.

                “You would have been a wonderful mother,” he told her, and she felt her heart thud. One small chink in her armor.

                “As I recall, we have agreed to disagree on that point,” she said softly, leaning forward and kissing him on the forehead. “Go back to sleep, Cullen. I will be back in no time.”

                She watched as her husband settled back down between the sheets, trying to focus on the path that lay before her. Once his breathing evened out again, she slipped quietly through the door to their bedroom and into their living quarters, pulling an envelope from the place where she had hidden it and placing it in the middle of his desk. The envelope was unmarked except for the letter “C,” and she studied it for a moment, thinking about the message that it held. It had taken her weeks to complete the letter, and she had lost count of how many times she had rewritten it. Her greatest fear was that, after her departure, her husband would take it upon himself to try to find her, and would make himself a target. As a result, she did everything she could to emphasize that she was leaving him by choice. It pained her to write the words, but she had forced herself to take a distant and formal tone, using crisp and cool language to deliver a cruel message: that she had chosen to leave him, and that she would never come back. However, despite the unflinching and straightforward nature of her letter, Deirdre was still worried that it might not have the intended effect. Her husband was so stubborn, especially when it came to her, that despite the thought she put into her letter, a small part of her was still concerned that he would not believe her.

                What if, despite everything that she had said, her husband still decided to come after her? Deirdre felt her heart race at the thought, and tore herself away. She couldn’t afford to lose her nerve now. She needed to stay focused.

                _He will believe the letter_ , she told herself. _He will read what you have written there, and it will break his heart, but he will believe it. And he will forget you, and move on to a better life._

                She gave one last glance at the letter before making her way into the hallway, gliding down the passageway and staircase until she reached the main floor. From there, her feet led her to the kitchens, where she located the pack she had hidden with supplies for her journey. She changed out of her shift and into warm traveling clothes, tucking the thin gown back into the hiding place and guiding herself towards the servant’s entrance. However, when she made it to the doorway, she found herself confronted by two obstacles she did not expect: Sylaise, dressed for traveling, and her husband’s hound, its body wriggling with excitement. Deirdre felt her heart drop into her stomach, and she did not speak for several moments. Neither did Sylaise, who simply gazed at her evenly. Deirdre’s eyes moved to the swell of Sylaise’s belly peeking out from beneath her traveling cloak, and she shook her head.

                “You cannot be serious, Sylaise.”

                The other woman’s eyes flickered.

                “If you are serious about leaving us, Inquisitor, then I am serious about accompanying you. You are my lady. I serve you. Where you go, I follow.”

                Deirdre was torn between wanting to hug her for her loyalty and shake her for her stupidity.

                “Sylaise, how can you say that? What about your husband? You would break his heart by leaving!”

                Sylaise gazed back at her.

                “What about _your_ husband?” she asked evenly, and Deirdre suppressed a groan. “My Lady, I’m not a fool. I know the Dread Wolf. If he has demanded that you turn yourself over to him, you _must_ let come with you. The people that serve him, they… they won’t understand you. You’ll threaten them. You’ll be in more danger than you can possibly understand. You can’t walk into that trap alone.”

                Deirdre drew in a breath. She had to act, and act quickly.

                “Solas has not demanded that I go to him, Sylaise. I am choosing to leave. I _want_ to go to him. I love him.”

                Sylaise’s brows creased. “I don’t believe you,” she whispered.

                “You don’t believe me because you do not understand the relationship that I have with him,” Deirdre shot back. “You _can’t_ understand. You think that you know him, because you know the ‘Dread Wolf,’ but you do not know him at all. You do not know him the way that I know him. You are nothing to him, and so he treats you like nothing. But when I am with him, he is a different man. He loves me more than any other, and I love him. I thought that I could settle for Cullen, but I was wrong. Seeing Solas in the Fade that night proved it to me. When I am here, I am living a half-life. Only when I am with Solas do I feel truly alive.”           

                Deirdre felt her face flush as the words poured out of her, her heart thudding in her ears. Sylaise’s eyes were shining, and her lips began to tremble. Deirdre drew in an uneven breath. Her outburst had had the intended effect.

                “How can you do this to him, my Lady? He _loves_ you. How can you do this to Dorian, or to Cassandra? How can you do this to me?” Tears begin to spill from her eyes, and her voice shook. “I was willing to die for you, my Lady.”  

                Deirdre looked away from the woman, down at the hound that stood beside her. The hound seemed to recognize the distress of his elven companions; his tail had fallen, and his ears were pressed back against his head. His eyes, when they met hers, were questioning. Oddly, and unreasonably, it was this betrayal that threatened to unmoor her. This loyal, trusting creature – what answer could she give to him, when he wondered where she had gone?

                “ _My Lady, how can I name my daughter after you, after what you have done_?”

                Deirdre felt an odd pain in her chest, almost as though she were being pierced through, but she kept her face even as the woman let out quiet sobs.

                “You are making a mistake, my Lady,” Sylaise said at last, wiping the tears from her face.

                “This is not a mistake, Sylaise,” Deirdre said sternly, meeting her eyes again. “This is something that I have to do.”

                “A- as you wish, my Lady,” Sylaise said, her voice shaking.

                Forcing herself into movement, Deirdre stepped past the woman and the hound and towards the door, pausing for a moment before she opened it. Without turning, she spoke.

                “Sylaise, you were wrong about me.”

                The woman let out a muffled sob.

                “And Sylaise… make sure he understands that I am doing this by choice. I don’t want him to have any delusions about coming after me.”

                Deirdre could feel the heat of the woman’s gaze on her back, and she imagined what her face must hold. She imagined that her lovely features had become a mask of sorrow, and anger, and betrayal. She imagined that it must be a mirror of what her own face had been, that night that Solas left her in the glade. She hadn’t realized, at the time, that being the one who was leaving could hurt a person just as much as being the one who was left.

                Had it been this hard for Solas to walk away?

                “As you wish, my Lady,” Sylaise said quietly, and Deirdre made her way at last through the door.

 

 

                The morning air was cold but refreshing, and Deirdre slid into the darkness as though into the arms of a comforting mother. Here, at last, there was no-one she could hurt. She moved through the gardens and at last onto the street, breathing deeply and feeling as though a physical weight had been lifted from her. She had not realized how much pressure had been building inside of her since her promise to Fen’Harel – the need to plan her escape, to keep her secrets hidden, and to follow through with what she intended. Despite the pain that grew with every step she took, she also felt relief.

                _At last_ , she thought, wrapping her cloak around her body, _it is over_.

                She did not look back at any point in her journey, instead focusing her attention on blending into the shadows. It was a chilly spring morning, and a thick fog hung in the air, cloaking the street in a muffled stillness. The fog left droplets of cold water clinging to her clothes, and she felt she could hear voices out of the silence, whispering a chorus to accompany her: _It’s over, it’s over, at last, it is over._

                Fen’Harel had not told her where he would meet her, but she knew that he would find her eventually. And so she kept walking, through the billowing fog and the hidden places, and she felt her mind creeping backwards over memories long forgotten. When she was a young girl, what had she thought her life would be? Did she regret the path that led her away from her Clan? Could it have been enough for her, that life of hunting and scraping a meager living from the earth? Would it have been preferable to this?

                Her thoughts absorbed her so deeply that, when she looked up at last and saw a figure standing several paces in front of her, she let out a breath of surprise. She forgot, for a moment, who it truly was, as the elf who stood before her was not arrayed in gleaming armor or fine clothing. Instead, he was wearing humble traveling clothes, all in earth tones, and on his chest he bore the jawbone of a wolf.

                It was Solas.

                Deirdre stared at the image of the man she loved – the traveler, the scholar, the artist, the healer – and began to wonder if she had slipped into the Fade, so eerie and otherworldly did he seem, standing there, cloaked in the fog. Her eyes moved to the necklace that he wore, thinking how that talisman had pierced her skin the first time they made love. Their coupling had been so rough and desperate with desire that it stole the breath from her lungs. He had pressed her against the wall, and the jawbone necklace had pierced the bare skin of her chest, causing small red points of blood to emerge at the teeth and sending small, stinging pains through her body. The pain had melded with the pleasure until she could no longer separate the two, and she had found herself studying the small wounds in the mirror hours later. _He has marked me_ , she thought, and it made her weak with longing.     

                _And so it always is with Solas,_ she thought, regarding him on that chilly spring morning in Tevinter. _Pleasure, laced indistinguishably with pain._

                “Good morning, Inquisitor,” her lover said, extending his hand. “Tell me: are you real? I’m afraid that if I touch you, you will disappear.”

                She looked away from him, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion.

                “Who knew that one year could feel like an age? I am so glad to see you, Deirdre,” he said, finally stepping towards her, cautiously brushing his hands over her hair and face. “There were many times I feared you would not come.”

                Deirdre kept her eyes averted. Had he forgotten that he forced her to come here? But then again, he had always been so changeable – one moment ablaze with notions and refusing to believe he could be wrong, and the next moment on his knees, saying he did not deserve her.

                “Come, _vhenan_ ,” he said quietly, gently lifting her chin and forcing her to meet his gaze. She felt a thrill of warmth through her body at the uncertainty she saw there. She had always loved him best this way – when he let himself stop being certain, and instead began to wonder. In those moments, he was like a child. “I know this must be hard for you, but – isn’t there some small part of you that is glad to see me?”

                She looked away and drew a shaky breath. When she spoke, it was the truth, and the words brought tears to her eyes. She had never been so weary.

                “Solas, I do not think a day will ever pass when I am not glad to see you."


	13. The Hunt

                Cullen drew in a deep breath, pressing his hand against his mouth. The sun was setting, and the terrain was too rugged to continue their search into the dark hours.

                He must resign himself to another night of waiting.

                Another night of uncertainty, another night that he must spend trying to sleep despite the knowledge that his wife was being held captive by a violent madman. He let out a quiet curse under his breath, the word turning to steam upon passing the border between his lips and the night air.

                _Where is she?_             

                “Commander Cullen, Sylaise has arrived.”           

                Cullen resisted the urge to start at the unexpected sound of the voice and turned to face the speaker, trying to mask his frustration.

                “I’m glad to hear it. See to it that she’s given suitable accommodations.”

                “She has asked to speak with you, sir. Immediately.”

                “Immediately?” Cullen lifted an eyebrow. “Very well. Show her to my tent, and I’ll speak with her.”

                Taking one last glance out into the dark night, Cullen turned and made his way towards the tent, wondering what the woman could possibly have to say that could not wait until morning.

                The first thing that he noticed upon arrival was that that the elven woman who was waiting within looked nervous. He had been surprised to receive her letter asking if she could join the search party – her baby girl was still so young, and she had previously refused any part in Cullen’s attempts to find his wife – but he knew that Deirdre was fond of the woman, and he could see no reason to refuse her help. Besides, she had once been an agent for Solas, and her knowledge of their adversary might prove invaluable. He waved his arm to a chair placed in front of his desk.

                “Hello, Sylaise. Welcome to our humble camp. Please take a seat. I’m pleased that you’ve-”

                “Commander Cullen, I’m afraid that I have not been entirely honest with you.”

                Cullen shifted. The woman had always been very to-the-point.

                “In what regard, Sylaise?”

                “With regard to my Lady,” she said quietly, and Cullen felt his shoulders tense.

                “What do you mean?”

                The woman drew in a deep breath, straightening in her seat and looking down at her hands.

                “Commander Cullen, up until now, I was certain that you were wrong about why my Lady left us. I thought your heartbreak wouldn’t allow you to see the truth – that she loves the Dread Wolf, and that she went to him because she desires him more than any other. That’s why I refused to help with any of the rescue missions. That’s why it made me so angry to hear the others speak of her. I believed that she betrayed us. But when Leliana received your letter saying you had seen her, and that you are certain she is unwell… Commander Cullen, I must know – why, now, are you so sure that she did not go to him willingly? How can you know?”

                Cullen gave a grim smile. "I wasn't, at first, I'll admit that. But when I saw her in Val Royeaux, it wasn’t just that she was unwell. She looked… like a shadow of herself. And the way she acted was… nervous, and skittish, like an animal that’s been caged. If she’s happy to be with Solas, she certainly didn’t _look_ it. And if she doesn’t _want_  to be with Solas, why did she flee from me? I think that he’s found some way to bind her to him. I think that he compelled her to go, and that he compels her to stay. I think that she’s his prisoner.”           

                Sylaise began to fidget, tugging at the end of her braid and frowning deeply. 

                “Sylaise, I _asked her_ if she went to him willingly, and she wouldn’t answer. She just stared at me.”

                Sylaise let out a breath.

                “Commander Cullen, there’s something that I need to tell you,” she said, her voice slightly shaky. “I… I should have told you this a long time ago, but I didn’t, out of loyalty to my Lady.”

                Cullen felt his hands tighten into fists, nervous at her ominous words, her fidgeting fingers, her distressed manner.

                “What is it, Sylaise?”

                “That night, when Dorian and my Lady went into the Fade to rescue me… I lied to you about what happened there. You must understand, I did it to protect her, but… I lied about the Inquisitor never seeing the Dread Wolf. I lied about all of it. She found where I was being held by him, and begged him for my release. She... she was injured by one of the Dread Wolf's guards for trying to protect me, and then she told me to leave them, and so I waited outside for what must have been hours. When my Lady came out, she looked… strange. And her wedding ring was gone. When I asked her what price she had paid for my release, she would not answer.” The woman began to tremble, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is my fault,” she said in a quiet voice, her eyes filling with tears. “All of it.”

                Cullen tried to maintain control over the turbulent storm of emotions that threatened to erupt from his chest: anger, bitterness, betrayal, and love, all roiling together in a contest to see which would determine what would he would do.

                “You’re saying that my wife saw Solas that night in the Fade?”

                Sylaise nodded miserably.

                “Do you have any idea what happened between them?”

                She shook her head. “I thought – I thought, at the time, that he must have extracted a price for my release. I thought it was perhaps her wedding ring, or something else. Part of me suspected that it might be something worse, so I watched her for months afterward, suspecting that she might be planning something. I tried to talk to her about it – about him, but she made it seem as though she truly loved him. I suspected that she would go to him, and so I waited, and I spoke to her on the night that she left, and she told me that she was going to him by choice. She told me that I was wrong about her, and that going to him was something that she had to do.” She pressed her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking. “I _knew_ better, but I let her trick me. I knew _him_ better, but I let my love for her outweigh my better judgment. I should have told you, Commander Cullen, but I felt like I couldn’t. I couldn’t betray her, not after what she had done for me.”

                Cullen flexed the fingers of his sword hand, trying to keep his breathing even. His wife had told him she had lost her wedding ring in the garden, and he had laughed, and told her not to worry.

                All this time, it had been in _his_ keeping?

                “Commander Cullen, I am so sorry. This is all my fault. She is in so much danger there, and she doesn't even see it. I tried to warn her... the Dread Wolf's followers, they will not understand her. They do not want a queen, only a king.”

                Cullen felt his brows draw together. "A queen?" he asked in a quiet voice, and Sylaise gazed at him, her eyes wet with tears. 

                "Of course, Commander Cullen. Why do you think the Dread Wolf brought her to him? He wants to make her his queen."

                "He hasn't made her a _queen_ , he's made her a _prisoner_ ," Cullen snapped. But despite the certainty in his voice, his thoughts trailed back to that first vision of his wife in Val Royeaux, when he had looked up in that cursed store to see her familiar face and form marked out like a midnight bloom, resplendent against the bright, gaudy colors of the fabrics all around her. She had been clad in such finery that, at first, he could not believe it was her. 

                "Queen or prisoner, I'm not sure that the Dread Wolf knows the difference," Sylaise said after a moment. "Or whether he cares. Of one thing I am certain: those that follow him do not care to know the difference. She is seen as a threat to them."

                Cullen drew in a deep, unsteady breath. All the months of heartache, when he had struggled late into the night, wondering if he was wrong, wondering if he was a fool for daring to believe his wife had lied in the letter she had written him, would have been avoided if he had known the information that Sylaise had just given him. If he had known, there would have been no doubt in his mind. If he had known, and known with certainty the danger that his wife was in, he would have doubled the search efforts, would not have wasted his time in the arms of other women, trying to temper his jealousy and heartache, would have poured every ounce of energy he had into finding her…

                "Commander Cullen, I don't think there are words to say how sorry I am," the woman said, her face crumpling into tears again.

                “Don’t blame yourself, Sylaise,” he said at last. “You believed her because she wanted you to believe her. She wanted all of us to believe her. She’s an intelligent woman, and she's nothing if not thorough. If their... agreement happened on the night you were taken in the Fade, then Deirdre would have had many, many months to plan things out, and to make sure that everything went according to her plan.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Whatever she must do, she does it to the utmost. You weren’t wrong to believe her.”

                Sylaise drew in a breath, lifting her gaze.

                “How did you know? How did you know she was lying?”

                “I didn’t know with certainty until I saw her. And before that, I simply refused to believe it. I wondered, and there were moments when I doubted, and thought myself a pathetic wretch who refused to accept the truth, but I could never fully believe it.” He let out another small laugh, this time less bitter. “She knows how stubborn I am. I would guess that some small part of her knew I wouldn’t accept what had happened, so she likely tried twice as hard to give her lies the appearance of truth.”

                “I failed her, Commander Cullen. I should have had your faith in her. If I had, this might have been over a long time ago.”

                Cullen drew a deep breath, struggling to suppress the voice inside of him that agreed with what the elven woman said – the voice that urged him to anger, that reminded him that this woman was responsible for nearly a year of heartache, and suffering, and separation from the woman he loved as he had not thought himself capable of loving – and reminded himself that she was as much a victim in this as he. He thought of what his wife would say, frowning slightly, reminding him as always of what was right. _Cullen, she did the best she could._

                “It’s water under the bridge now, Sylaise. All we can do now is try to get her back as quickly as possible.”

                With his words, the woman’s manner changed. Her eyes flashed, and she lifted her gaze, looking at him as if she had something to say.

                “Yes, I… Permission to speak on that?”

                Cullen nodded.

                “Commander Cullen, you’re being tracked.”

                Cullen shifted in his chair, leaning his elbows on his desk and letting out a deep sigh.

                “I know,” he said at last.

                “Elves shadow your steps by day. I’ve seen their markings in the trees, sending messages. They’re the Dread Wolf’s agents. He knows you’re here.”

                Cullen pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose.

                “What do you make of it, Sylaise? What do you think he’s doing?”

                The woman let out a tense sigh. “I don’t know, Commander Cullen. I… I have some ideas, but they could all be wrong. None of the agents have tried to lead you off your path, or set any obstacles preventing your progress. Stopping you, or at least slowing you down, would be easy in this rugged country, so why isn’t he doing it? It makes me nervous. It’s not like the Dread Wolf I knew. It doesn’t seem like he’s trying to control the situation. It’s almost like he is just… waiting to see what will happen. And _that_ …” The woman shivered. “I don’t like it, Commander Cullen. I don’t like it at all.”

                Cullen thought of his wife, holed up somewhere in these dark mountains, her health deteriorating, the manner of her captivity shrouded in mystery, and he let out a curse.

                “Commander Cullen, if he wanted us dead, it would be over already,” she continued. “I don’t think that he wants us dead, so what _does_ he want? Is he trying to lead us into a trap? Will he try to take us prisoner?”

                Cullen rested his head in his hands.

                “I don’t know, Sylaise. I don’t know.”

                The woman studied him for several moments.

                “You should get some sleep, Commander Cullen,” she said quietly, her brows creasing. “You won’t do my Lady any good if you collapse with exhaustion on the way to the Dread Wolf’s hideout.”

                Cullen smirked slightly, lifting his eyes. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to be alone.

                “I won’t sleep again until I have her back," he said starkly. "You, on the other hand, must be exhausted, so I would suggest you get some rest while you can.”

                Sylaise seemed startled at the abruptness of his dismissal, but she nodded.

                “As you wish, Commander Cullen,” she said, moving to leave. But after several steps, she paused, and turned back to him. “Actually, there is one last thing,” she said, stepping to his desk and pulling a letter from the folds of her cloak. “Leliana asked that I give this to you. It’s from Vivienne.”

                Cullen took the letter and glanced at it. Vivienne? What could she possibly have to say to him?

                “Thank you, Sylaise,” he said absently, and she nodded, giving him a brief bow.

                “You’re welcome, Commander Cullen. I will see you in the morning.”

                And with that, she departed, and the Commander was left alone for another night of waiting.

 

               

                Hours later, Cullen was awake, pacing in the darkness around their camp. He had read Vivienne’s letter, and his mind was racing.

                _Cullen, dear_ , she had written, _one of my informants has told me that you’re close to securing Deirdre, and that you are now certain she's being held against her will._

Cullen continued his pacing, his feet making crackling sounds against the frozen earth.

_I must confess that I will not be surprised in the slightest if it’s true that the one who calls himself the ‘Dread Wolf’ had found a way to force your wife to come to him. Unlike the rest of our merry party in the Inquisition, I knew from the beginning what was going on between the elven trickster and our Inquisitor. I have known men like him all my life at court, and although he hid his nature remarkably well, I saw through the facade. He would have had us all believe that he was nothing more than a humble, traveling apostate, but I saw him for what he was – a wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you’ll forgive the rather tired metaphor. Deirdre is an intelligent woman, but she did not stand a chance against him._

Cullen drew in a deep breath, continuing his pacing, wishing he could sleep, but knowing that the weariness of his body would be overwhelmed by the restlessness of his thoughts, constantly whispering to him in the darkness, keeping him awake.

                _While I’m sure you must be suffering greatly with all of this – your wife leaving you under duress, her lover being at most an elven demi-god and at minimum a dangerously powerful mage – I would urge you to proceed with caution._ _I have known men like him, and I can tell you with certainty that Solas is not doing this out of any reasonable motivation. He is not doing this out of a desire to expand his power, or influence, or to threaten his enemies. While he is a man who is intimately acquainted with the subtleties of power play, I urge you to understand that that is not what he is after. For while Solas is very much the man that I suspected him to be – a brilliant mind, ruthless in its pursuit of power and control – in this, he is different. He has surprised himself, with loving her. He thought, at the beginning, to use her, and he did not anticipate what would come of it. He did not expect that, in the end, she would threaten his commitment to his aims. He is a powerful man, but he is also a man in love. And if he forced her to come to him, he did it as an act of love. And that, perhaps, is the tragedy in all of this, although I suspect that you will not agree. He loves her, and he desires so much to have her in his life that he is willing to threaten his ultimate goal to make that happen. But the man is so little acquainted with love that he tries to act on his love for Deirdre in the same way he would his other aims – through an exercise of power._

Cullen paused beside a large tree, moving his hands against the rough bark and pressing his entire weight against it. He was breathing heavily, and he fought to hold back a shout of frustration when suddenly he heard a sound, somewhere in the surrounding darkness. His fingers moved instinctively to his sword, and he turned into the night, his eyes narrowed. He saw a flash of white moving in the black, and he stood frozen as a creature came into focus. It was a wolf – a white wolf, with eyes that he had seen before.

_The most dangerous thing that you can do right now is forget what his motivations are. He is not doing any of this for resources, or to expand his power or influence. He is not behaving as any normal enemy might, and you must plan accordingly._

Cullen took a step forward, his breath visible in the air.

                “Solas,” he said.

                The white wolf stood several paces away, regarding him. For several moments, both were utterly still, each of them held captive by their thoughts.

                Until, at last, the white wolf moved, bowing its head before disappearing into the surrounding darkness.

                _He is doing this because he loves her._


	14. What Would You Have Me Do?

                The sharp-eyed elf who ruled the fortress in the mountains had been given many names. There were some who called him Fen’Harel.  Others called him Dread Wolf. There were some who called him Trickster, and others who called him Solas. There were some who called him master, and others who called him traitor. There were some who called him enemy, and some who called him lord. He had been called so many names by so many people over so many centuries that he had long ago stopped caring what title he was given, and by whom. In truth, he had little interest in what most people thought to call him, and even less in what they felt about him. Of late, he had ceased to care about anything at all, except for the fact that the only woman whose opinion meant anything to him – the woman who had once called him Solas, and lover, and friend – had ceased to call him anything at all.

                She had ceased to call him anything at all, because she was not speaking to him. Since her return from Val Royeaux, she had stopped eating, and she spent her days by a window in the eastern tower, turning her face towards the sun that rose each day over the mountains. She said little to others, and absolutely nothing to him, and when he did manage to catch her attention, she simply gave him a sad smile and touched his face. The man had tried everything to get through to her – had fallen to his knees, begged her to speak to him, spent hours with his head in her lap, and his arms around her waist – but all that his ministrations had earned him was a turn of the eyes, and a touch of the hand, before she looked away again.

                The man was at his wit’s end over her condition. Nothing was going according to his plan, and he did not know what to do. He had been prepared for hiccups in his journey through this future – for errors, and mistakes, and for unintended consequences – but he had not been prepared for her. He had not been prepared for this woman, from whom he had expected so little, but who had proved him wrong in every imaginable way. This woman who had laughed at him, and chastised him, and sought his guidance, and offered hers, and whose strength became a source of pride for him. He was not prepared for her wisdom, or for her tenacity, or for her selflessness so genuine that at first he had not believed it could be real. He was not prepared for the way that she had brought his heart to its knees, and made him fall so deeply in love with her that at times he nearly forgot who he was, and what he had to do. He was not prepared for how much pain she brought him, when all she ever showed him was love and kindness.      

                He was not prepared for the woman whose life he waylaid and upended, and who was marked with a wound of his own making. He was not prepared for the woman who forgave him for breaking her heart, and who approached him after the fall of a monster that _he_ had created, in a battle that had nearly cost her her life, to say that she was sorry.

                He was not prepared to love her, and he was not prepared to let her go. He was not prepared for the way she took the news of his true identity, and he was not prepared for the jealousy that held his mind captive when he learned she was to become another man’s wife. He was not prepared for the fight to keep her, and he was not prepared for the way that her face had looked when he found her in Val Royeaux, as if, at last, after all these years, there really wasn’t anything left for him to take.

                He knew that his followers were waiting for a reckoning – a bloodletting of the one who had betrayed him – but he had no interest in punishing Abelas. He had no interest in anything, except getting her back. So when he called Abelas into his war room several weeks after the incident in Val Royeaux, he ordered all of his attendants out of the room, and addressed only the elf who stood before him.

                “Abelas, would you be so kind as to explain to me what happened on the day that I found you and the Inquisitor in Val Royeaux?”

                The solemn-eyed elf nodded evenly.

                “Certainly, Fen’Harel. During your absence, I gathered information about where the Inquisitor’s husband was located. After securing that information, I used an eluvian to take the Inquisitor to Val Royeaux, in the hopes that she might encounter her husband there. We spent the day apart, and during that time she _did_ encounter her husband, and after that she came back to the eluvian, and we remained there until your arrival.”         

                The sharp-eyed elf studied Abelas. In a different time, this admission of guilt might have sparked a murderous rage in him, but, now, it simply made him feel weary.

                “I see. Why did you do it, Abelas? Why did you take her there, knowing that she might see him?”

                “I took her there because I wanted her to see her husband, and to be reminded of the life that awaits her outside these walls.”

                “And why did you want her to be reminded of that life?”

                “Because I think that the manner in which you are keeping her here is wrong.”

                Here, at last, was a flash of anger.

                “What reason do you have for thinking that your opinion on the matter has any significance at all, Abelas?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "That statement savors strongly of treachery.”

                The solemn-eyed elf continued to regard him evenly, utterly unperturbed.

                “I have served only one master before you, Fen’Harel, and I served her for many, many years. I should think you have no reason to question my loyalty. I did what I thought was necessary on your own behalf.”

                He felt his brows crease. “On _my_ behalf? And why is that?”

                “Because you are not able to do it.”

                “Not able to do _what_ , exactly?”

                “To let her go, Fen’Harel.”

                He felt his face fall into a dark scowl, and he turned away from the other man abruptly, beginning to pace.

                “And why is it you think that I should _let her go_?” he asked sharply.

                “Because she is dying, Fen’Harel, and because you are betraying yourself by keeping her here. You have committed yourself to your mission in this world, and you have made remarkable strides towards accomplishing it. You have built up an army around you, increased your powers, amassed significant wealth and resources, and you are moving closer and closer to realizing your aims. But you put all of that at risk, as long as you have her in your life. You will never be fully committed when your attention is split between your mission and her. By keeping her here, you are putting yourself, your goal, and everyone who supports you in jeopardy.”

                The sharp-eyed elf shifted in his chair. Of all the words that Abelas had spoken, he had heard only one.

                “Do you really think that she is dying, Abelas? I had hoped...”

                Abelas nodded, his expression unreadable.

                “Yes, Fen’Harel. I do.”

                He let out a groan, leaning back in his chair and pressing his fingers against his eyes.

                “I sense it as well, Abelas, and I cannot understand it. She’s not in the grip of any malicious spell or physical affliction. The Anchor is gone from her, so it should no longer be impacting her. She misses… that man, certainly, but that will pass with time. She just needs to be _patient_ , but I fear that by the time she lets go of that life, she will be so far gone that there will be no saving her, and I _do not understand why_. No matter what I do, I cannot get through to her.” His voice was uneven and his hands were shaking, and Abelas studied him for several moments before speaking.

                “It is not only a matter of her missing her old life, Fen’Harel," he said evenly. "It is that she does not want to be here.”

                The blue-eyed elf moved a hand over his mouth, his expression anguished.

                “Perhaps the Inquisitor thinks that her old life is all there is for her, but that is only because she doesn’t understand the potential for what we will have together. All it will take is time. I know that my mission pains her, but I must make her understand that there is no reason to give up hope on the life that we will have together once my work is done."

                As he heard the words, Abelas wondered who the man was trying to convince.

                “ _After your work is done_? Fen’Harel, there are those among your followers who think that you will be able to make them all immortal, once all of this is through. There are those who think that they’ll be martyrs for your cause and earn their place among the nobility in whatever afterlife may await them. But she is not so foolish, and neither am I. You do not know what is going to happen to her when this is all over. And even if she does survive – she is _mortal_. Her death _will_ come, and how will she face it? In a world that is not her own, surrounded by the ghosts of the people she once loved. She would be suffering as you are suffering. Would you wish that on her?”

                “Abelas, you should not speak as though you know what the future holds. There might be a way-”

                “But is that what she would _want_? Have you ever asked her? What would you do, if you kept her by your side until you accomplished your mission, just to watch her fade until her heartbreak finally kills her? What would you do if, a hundred years into your potential future, she realizes that whatever life she is living has come at the cost of the people she loved, and she plunges a dagger into her heart? What if she were to become pregnant, and you would lose not only her, but your child in your selfishness?”           

                The sharp-eyed elf let his head fall into his hands, letting out a breath. “The Inquisitor cannot have children,” he said quietly, and Abelas cleared his throat.

                “It makes little difference," he said quickly. "The point is, there is a _cost_ to keeping her here, and that cost will likely be her life. Would you take it from her, after all that she has been through on your behalf?”

                “How clear-sighted you are, Abelas. How simple you make it all seem. What, then, would you have me do?”

                Abelas regarded him evenly.

                “You know what I would have you do, Fen’Harel. The question is whether or not you will do it.”

                "I have waited too long for this, Abelas. I am so close to freeing myself of my burden. I am so close to being able to live my own life again. I cannot back down now," he said, stopping in his pacing and gazing out a vaulted window. "I _will not_ back down."

                "So you will not let her go?"

                The man with many names shot an angry glance at Abelas, and his eyes narrowed. "No," he said shortly.

                Abelas bowed, his face devoid of expression. "Very well, my Lord. I will cease from any further interference."

                But the other man scarcely seemed to hear him. He had turned back to the window, and was looking out. "You are dismissed, Abelas," he said absently, and he did not move from his spot by the window until long after his companion had gone.


	15. Missing Pieces

                Cullen remembered every detail of the day that Haven fell.

                For months afterward, he had woken in the middle of the night from dreams in which he lifted the woman called the Herald from the snow and found her body limp, the life gone from her, and felt his heart hammering at the realization that he had let this precious creature – this remarkable woman, this woman to whom he had never shown a shred of kindness – die. The dreams rocked him, and he could not shake the fear that gripped him until the days were well advanced, and he saw the woman who would later be his wife moving safely about the fortress of Skyhold, talking and laughing and brimming with ardent life. Stubborn fool that he was, he had let his prejudice blind him. He had nearly learned the hard way that she had become a person that he could not bear to lose.

                He did not know when it happened – he did not know at what point during their heated arguments and forced cooperation, her rolled eyes or his muttered curses, that he had grown to care so deeply for the woman, but when he had heard the explosions from the settlement as he led the refugees out into the mountain pass, he felt as though his heart had frozen. What if she had died? What if her light had been extinguished? Why had he allowed her to charge out to face an unknowable enemy when he was fleeing like a dog with its tail between its legs? How had he let this woman die instead of him, when he had never even had the decency to call her by her name? His legs had stopped, suddenly, at the realization: he had never known her as anything but “the Herald.” She might have died for him, and he did not even know her name.

                He remembered the growing sense of desperation as they set up camp in the mountains, dispatching scouts to look for the Herald and her companions. He remembered looking out into the blinding snow and seeing figures approaching, and he remembered the way his chest constricted when he realized that only three figures made their slow and trudging way towards the camp, and that her small frame was not one of them. He remembered how he had moved to join the search party until Cassandra grabbed his arm and wrenched him back, shouting through the storm, “Not you, Cullen! We cannot lose you!”

                He remembered the frigid hours of waiting, when he looked out into the darkness and faced the nearly impossible odds. What if she were injured? How would she ever make it to them, with this storm? How would she ever find them?

                He remembered watching the search parties return, their eyes downcast, their faces grim, and he remembered the moment when they gave up hope of finding her. He remembered the haunting wails of the refugees, who cried out in a bone-chilling eulogy for the so-called Herald of Andraste, the woman who had died for them, and whose soul had fled to meet the Maker.

                He remembered the ringing in his ears as he paced around the perimeter of the camp, staring out into the night, offering a prayer to a deity that he wasn’t sure he even believed in to please, please, please, _bring her back_. He remembered Cassandra approaching him, shaking her head and telling him to give it up. He remembered looking out, one last time, and being met with an impossible sight – a small form against the white snow. He remembered running towards it without thinking, and hearing Cassandra let out a gasp and follow him. He remembered shouting something as her figure came into view. He remembered the erratic way that she was walking, the way she clutched her arms around herself and the way the shreds of her ruined cloak billowed around her in the wind. He remembered the moment she looked up at him, suddenly – the way her eyes lit up when they met his, only for the briefest moment – before her head fell forward, her knees collapsed, and she sank into the snow.

                He remembered catching her just before she hit the ground, crouching to lift her as gently as he could. He remembered Cassandra running back to the camp before him, shouting about the need for hot water and healers, and he remembered the way his heart thrummed in his chest as he tried to shield the woman that he held from any further pain.

                He remembered the deathly pallor of her skin. He remembered the violent trembling that seemed to shake her to the very bone, and he remembered her lips moving in an incoherent stream.

                “Th – th- the wolves,” she murmured, moving her limbs weakly and chattering the words through her teeth. “They’re c-c-calling to me. I h-have to f-f-find the wolves.”

                Cullen remembered bellowing in anger at the refugees who crowded around him, reaching with grasping hands for the woman in his arms. He remembered ordering them to clear a path, and pulling the woman he held closer to him in a protective embrace. He remembered making it to his tent, at last, and laying her down on the furs in his cot. He remembered his heart hammering as he was pulled away and a Chantry sister settled down on the cot beside her. He remembered turning his back as the sister removed the elven woman’s frozen clothing, wrapping her in furs and trying to get her to drink a warm broth. He remembered watching as the sister's attempts to revitalize her failed, and Josephine began to cry. He remembered letting out a shout of frustration, and hearing a calm and quiet voice behind him.

                “Cullen, Cassandra, I believe that I might be of some assistance here.”

                He remembered watching as Cassandra forced the Chantry sister to move, and a blue-eyed elven apostate took her place on the bed. He remembered the look of concentration on the man’s face, the way his brow furrowed as he lifted his hands and moved them over the woman’s body, closing his eyes and breathing evenly. He remembered watching as the man began to emit a light blue glow, and he remembered thinking, faintly, that when he was a Templar, it had been his job to kill men like him. He remembered how, after several minutes passed, she let out a gasp, almost as if she had been drowning and was coming up for air, and sank back into the furs, this time breathing evenly, this time flushed with healthy color. He remembered Varric letting out a shout, and Dorian crouching to his knees beside her and grasping her hand. He remembered sinking to rest on a chest near the entrance of the tent, placing his head in his hands and trying to catch his breath.

                Cullen remembered all of these things. Every detail of that life-changing day remained as vivid to him in the years that followed as if they had happened only moments before. But what Cullen could not remember, and what Cullen did not know, is where it was that Solas had been, from the time he returned with Cassandra and Dorian from the wreckage of Haven and the time that the Inquisitor stumbled her way into their camp. He did not know if he had disappeared, mysteriously, during that time, and he did not know if there was anyone who would have noticed if he had.

                Cullen did not know if a white wolf had found the woman who would later be his wife making her solitary way through the snow, and whether the wolf had led her through the storm and delivered her to the people who had given up on her. He did not know if what he had thought to be his future wife’s incoherent rambling was in reality an explanation of how she had found her way through the storm seemingly against all odds.

                He did not know if wolves had really _had_ called to her.

                He did not know if the white wolf had really _had_ led her back to him.

                Cullen did not know, with certainty, whether the apostate’s face had really softened with relief when the woman beneath his hands erupted back into life. He might have just imagined the way the man’s shoulders had slumped slightly with exhaustion as he rose from her side and made his way, silent and unnoticed, through the opening of the tent while the others celebrated. He might be have misremembered the strange smile on his face, and the tone of his voice, when he addressed them all in the sunlight the next morning and said, “I am beginning to think that the humans might be right about you, Herald. Perhaps you really do have some sort of deity looking after you.”

                The Commander did not know if all of these small details, which had seemed so unremarkable at the time, were in actuality missing pieces to a puzzle that he could not understand until years later, when he was making his way through unfamiliar mountains in search of his wife and at last beginning to question. He had not thought to wonder what role the blue-eyed apostate might have played in bringing his future wife back to him until he met the white wolf face-to-face, and remembered the feverish words that she had spoken.

                All those years had passed, and never before had he considered what debt he might owe the man he called his enemy.


	16. Choices

                Something was different about the blue-eyed elven man sitting in the bathing room with Deirdre. He had entered several minutes after she slid herself into the water to soak, and he had been silent since his arrival. He was not grasping at her, or pleading with her, or trying to drown her in persuasive words. Instead, he was sitting with his back against the wall several feet away from her, his knees drawn up to his chest and his elbows resting on top of them. His gaze was focused on a spot on the floor in front of him, and he seemed to be thinking deeply about something. There were lines between his eyes, and his expression was troubled.

                _At last,_ she thought, _he will let me speak._

                “You are looking very glum tonight, Fen’Harel,” she said quietly. His eyes met hers, and she watched his face change from momentary astonishment to weariness.

                “So, I am Fen’Harel again,” he observed. “Before the trip to Val Royeaux, I was Solas to you.”

                Her expression did not waver.

                “There are those who would have me believe that Solas has never existed, even when I have called you by that name. They say that you have been Fen’Harel and no other for all your days.”

                The man let out a breath, stretching his legs out in front of him. 

                “And you would allow yourself to be swayed by their opinion of me?" he asked in a tired voice. "After all of the years that have passed between us, you would hold someone else’s word about me above my own? You had so much faith in me in the beginning, Deirdre. You trusted me when you had no reason to trust me. You trusted me when you thought I was a wandering apostate, and when I had done nothing to show you that I was worthy of your faith in me. You trusted me then, so why not now? What must I do to win back a trust that I did not have to fight to gain in the beginning?”

                She stayed very still in the bathing tub, gazing at him through the steam that rose around her. She did not know it, but her eyes were luminous.

                “There are those who would say that I was too willing to trust, in those days," she said softly. "There are those who would say that I have paid the price for it, in the end.”

                At this, he rose and began to pace, seemingly unable to look at her. His voice was clipped.

                “Deirdre, stop it. You are speaking in riddles. It is a simple question, and I would ask that you answer it: what do I have to do to make you trust me again?”

                “I don’t know,” she said softly, sinking back into the water and covering her eyes with her hand. “I don’t know.”

                They remained in silence for several moments, until he spoke again.

                “Do you remember the night we returned to Skyhold after our journey to that village outside of Redcliffe? The village that was attacked by Red Templars during your absence from Skyhold?”

                Deirdre stared at him.

                Of _course_ she remembered that night, and the journey that had led to it. The attempt to reclaim that village outside of Redcliffe had proven to be one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. She returned from her solitary journey after that tense exchange in the Commander’s tower to be faced with the unimaginable news that, during her absence (and thus, perhaps, due to her negligence), a small, remote village had been attacked and ransacked by a band of Red Templars. When Cassandra had dragged her away from Solas and into the War Room that evening, it was to tell her the news. Cullen had pleaded with Cassandra not to tell her immediately (“ _Cassandra, please, she just got back. She needs time to rest. Can’t this at least wait til morning_?”), but Deirdre had insisted that she be told. And so it was that, only a few hours after her arrival back at Skyhold, she had departed again, this time traveling with a group of allies and soldiers to reclaim that village.

                The Commander had tried to convince her to stay, pleading with her to let the soldiers handle it, and he had reached out to touch her arm when she stepped away.

                “Deirdre, please-” he said softly, and she had frozen at his touch as if under the force of a spell. 

                _I would let him down_ , she thought, _as I have so many other people – the innocents at Haven, Abelas, Solas, these villagers outside of Redcliffe_...

                “Cullen _, don’t_ ,” she had snapped, her voice clipped, before wrenching her arm away. He had withdrawn his hand slowly, his face unreadable. He made no further attempts to convince her to stay.

                Six violent, painful, and exhausting weeks later, she had returned to Skyhold in the dead of the night, and her feet had led her to his door before her mind realized what it was that she was doing. She did not even stop to change out of her frozen and blood-stained garments, did not stop to take a drink of water, did not stop to urge the feeling back into her fingers and toes, simply trudged through the snow and made her way to his door, not even stopping to knock, simply reaching with aching fingers to the door and making her way through…

                What she had seen had stopped her in her tracks.

                Of _course_ she remembered that night. If she remembered nothing else in her life, she would remember that night. It was… It was…

                “It was the first night that you and Cullen made love,” Solas remarked quietly, watching her face. He had stepped close to the bathing tub and was looking down at her. “I remember it well. You slept for three days after that night, and he conducted all his business from your quarters like a guard hound. No-one was allowed to enter or leave without his approval. It was when I realized that I had truly lost you.”

                Deirdre felt her eyes fill with tears, overwhelmed by the memories of that night, and she drew her knees up to her chest.

                “If you remember," he continued, "there was a hot bath prepared for you in your room. Have you ever wondered who it was that ordered it sent? It wasn’t Leliana or Josephine. They were sleeping, oblivious to your arrival. It wasn’t Dorian or Cassandra, who had dragged themselves back to their chambers as soon as we arrived to tend to their own wounds. And it certainly wasn’t _him_. He was too busy fucking another woman to wonder at where you were or whether you were unraveling into a thousand pieces. It was _me_ , Deirdre. I was trying to help you, but you pushed me away. It might have been me, that night, who comforted you, but you shut me out.”

                “Solas, I…”

                “Do you remember the first time that _we_ made love, Deirdre? I tried so hard to hold myself back, to keep my distance from you. I wanted to give you something better. I thought: this is no beginning. Making love against a wall like a pair of creatures in heat? She deserves better than this. But I couldn’t resist you. I wanted you so badly that I was almost afraid of you.”

                Her voice rang out suddenly.

                “ _Of course I remember these things, Sola_ s!” she cried. “Of course I remember them! These things are my _life_. These memories are _who I am._ How can you ask me if I remember them? Why are you saying these things now, after all these years? What can you possibly hope to gain from it?”

                “ _To make you understand that you were not the only person who was hurt by this_ ,” he said forcefully. “To make you understand that I was not some unfeeling force of nature, who cared only for accomplishing his task. To make you understand that I love you, and that leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

                She lifted her eyes to him. _So here we are again_ , she thought, _in a turn and return, in a cycle which it seems neither of us will ever break_.

                “But you still _did_ it, Solas," she said in a hollow voice. "You _did_ leave me. You made your choice, then, and you have stayed true to it through all of these years. At the time, I didn’t understand what it was that you had chosen over me. I thought I had done something wrong, that I had lost you because of my own failings, and it broke my heart. Now, I understand the reasons why, but the fact remains the same: you may love me, but when it became time for you to make your choice, you did not choose me. You may love me still, but still, you would not choose me. Your bringing me to this place has not changed that.”

                His eyes were startlingly intense. He had come to kneel beside the tub, and he reached into the water to clasp her hand. “That is the past, Deirdre. I did what I had to do given the circumstances. But you – haven’t I proven to you that I will do anything in my power to keep you by my side? You say that you love me – isn’t that love worth waiting for? Won’t that love hold true until all of this is over?”

                She stared at him.

                “ _Until all of this is over?"_ " she whispered, her voice shaking. "Until all of this is over? Solas, you say that I will forget my past life – how can I forget my past life, when the alternative is to devote my entire existence to a man who has proven time and time again that he will forsake me in favor of securing his own ends? Why would I _want_ to forget?”

                “I simply need more time, Deirdre. You must allow me that. I will right the wrongs that I have done to you. I will see to it that all of your hurts are healed, and the past will no longer need to haunt you anymore. Why can’t you grant me that?”

                She shook her head, drawing her legs into her chest and resting her forehead against her knees. She pulled her hand away from his. “You are not listening to me,” she said softly, and her shoulders began to shake with silent sobs.

                After several moments, she heard him move. He reached a hand to her face and lifted her chin. His eyes met hers, and she was shocked by his expression. His brows were furrowed, and his gaze was searching. It was almost as if he were afraid. She had not thought him capable of fear anymore.

                “What do you want, Deirdre?” he asked in a quiet voice.

                For a moment she couldn’t speak. In all her years of knowing and loving him, he had never asked her that question.

                “I want to go home,” she said softly. “I want to go back to my husband. I want to leave this place, and never come back.”

                Deirdre felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Despite the love she held for Solas, despite the part of her that would always wonder what might have been, she cherished the clarity with which her heart provided the answer to his question. It had been a year since she had left the Inquisition, and she had spent the darkest moments of that year struggling with the very question he had posed to her. _What did she want?_ She loved Solas – could she bear to let him go? She loved her husband – could she bear to go back to him, after what she had done to him? And now, at last, she had found the answer to her question: she loved Solas, but she would choose her husband. She would choose her husband, because he had chosen _her_. In that, she would always be true to him. In that, she had found her freedom.    

                His face fell, and, for a moment, his eyes were laced with pain. Deirdre felt her heart ache. Every choice she made came with strings attached.

                Solas had found no freedom in her answer.

                “So this is the truth, at last?” he asked, and she sighed.

                “Yes, Solas. The truth. There has been precious little of that between us over the years.”

                He let out a measured breath. “Better late than never, I suppose,” he said in a low voice. Then, he sighed. “Come, Deirdre. Dry off. It is late, and you need to sleep.”

                Trying to ignore the threads of pain that laced their way up her chest and into her throat as she watched him move away from her, she rose and stepped out of the tub, drying herself with the towel that he handed her. She thought again of the tragic web that brought the three of them together - her, her husband, and the man called Solas. Had it not been for the Conclave, each of them would have continued living their separate lives and likely never met. They likely would have been spared what had come to feel like a lifetime of sorrow. What would Solas have been like, she wondered, to a woman other than her?

                “Solas,” she asked slowly, studying him. “The women that you loved in your past life – what were they like?”

                He took the towel from her and stepped behind her, slipping her dressing gown over her shoulders and letting out a wry laugh. “There were no other women, Deirdre. I had lovers in the physical sense, certainly, but I never loved them. Not the way that I love you. I have no experience with love like this. I should have thought that obvious, given what a mess I’ve made of things.”

                She bit her lip, and risked another question. “Solas, are you immortal?”

                He froze, his fingers in her hair.

                “Your capacity to surprise me never fails, Deirdre. I had expected this question, from you, but I expected it a long time ago. I had not expected it now.”

                She turned to face him, lifting her eyes to meet his.

                “Are you immortal, Solas? I have wondered ever since the day you took the Anchor. The things you said – I have never been able to decide one way or the other.”

                He gave her a small smile, and brushed his fingers along her cheek. “That is a big question, Deirdre. One that should wait until the morning. You need to rest. Might I tell you tomorrow?”

                “Tomorrow,” she echoed faintly. As he moved his hands over her face, she felt suddenly exhausted. “Very well," she said slowly. "Tomorrow.” He gave her a very gentle smile.

                "Tomorrow," he said softly, and soon she felt his warm hand on her back, leading her to the bed they shared. He lifted the blankets and helped her settle in. He sat beside her, and continued to move his hands over her face, stroking her hair, moving his fingers over her shoulders. She felt incredibly warm, incredibly at peace. She felt as though she could sleep for days.

                “I’m sorry, _vhenan_ ,” he murmured softly, leaning down and kissing her forehead. “I am sorry for everything.”  

                She opened her mouth to reply, but found that she was too exhausted to speak. His hands continued their movements. She had never been so tired.

                She felt his hand brush over her eyes, and they closed as if compelled. Although she fought to stay awake, she fell into a slumber that was more akin to oblivion than sleep. She fell out of being, out of time, and into the memory of her first night with the man who would become her husband.


	17. The First Night

                 By the time they made it back to Skyhold after their journey from the ransacked village outside of Redcliffe, Deirdre might as well have been traveling alone. She did not maintain a pace several yards ahead of her companions like she usually did, scouting and keeping a close eye on their surroundings. She did not look up every few moments once they drew within a mile of Skyhold hoping to catch a glimpse of the stronghold and ensure herself that the little heart center of her world had remained unscathed in the time since she had gone. Instead, she sat mute on her mount and maintained her distance behind the group, wrapping her arms around herself and looking no further than a few feet in front of her. She was tired. She was fighting a battle against her thoughts and she was losing. She tried not to think about what she had done. She tried not to think about the people she had killed – whether they had children, or a mother still living, or siblings, or lovers, or friends who would grieve their passing. She tried not to think about whether the last few years had changed her, whether she had been driven to become the worst version of herself. In all her desperate clawing to put together a place of safety and security for the weak, had she herself become a tyrant? Had she lost herself in the mantle of the Inquisition? If the people from her life before saw her now, would they know her? She was likely to die soon, but how many others had already died as a result of her failures? She tried not to think of the burned villagers, the violated women, and the children whose chance at life had been taken from them so quickly, all while she indulged herself in a selfish search for peace. She tried not to think of what a relief it would be to simply take a misstep on the battlements of Skyhold and let herself fall to a blissful end on the rocks below.

                She raised her eyes when the gates of Skyhold were lifted for them, and she felt the glow of torchlight on her face. It was very late, so only the posted guards and the stable hands were awake to greet them. She felt their eyes on her as she nearly fell from her horse and handed the reins to the nearest stable hand. She felt they were evaluating her, doubting her, measuring just how much she had already failed them as well as anticipating her capacity to fail them in the future. She straightened her shoulders and made her way towards the main hall, signaling her farewell to Dorian and Cassandra with a simple head nod. They gave her a solemn nod in return and let her go. There was snow on the ground, and she heard it crunching beneath her boots as she walked. Suddenly, a figure fell into step beside her.

                “Inquisitor, it appears that you are unwell. I feel that I must remind you that you cannot push yourself too hard. You have been over-burdening yourself lately, and I fear that it is wearing on you.”

                Her feet slowed to a stop. Solas. _He is worried about my ability to fight Corypheus_ , she thought. _He can see me cracking into pieces, and he fears for the preservation of the orb if I fail to defeat our enemy_. She did not look at him.

                “Solas, I assure you, I am quite alright. I will dedicate all of the energy that I have into preparing for the battle with Corypheus. I will do everything within my power to ensure that he is destroyed and that the orb is preserved for you.” She still did not look at him, but she heard him let out a small breath. When she began to move away from him, he responded to her back. 

                “Very well, Inquisitor. I am sorry to have imposed myself,” he said evenly, and she heard his footsteps moving away from her. She did not look back until the footfalls had faded away, and she nearly crumpled at the base of the stone steps into the main hall.

                Looking back, she could never determine what exactly it was that led her, in that moment, to turn her thoughts towards the Commander, and to make her way towards his quarters instead of her own. Her better judgment would have reminded her that he was likely sleeping, and that, even if he wasn’t sleeping, her presence likely would not be welcome after the cold farewell that she had given him at their last parting. Her better judgment would have reminded her that while her heart had keened for him like a lost thing in those weeks she spent in that village, he likely had not thought of her at all. Her better judgment would have reminded her that he already had more than his share of women as lovers, and that none of them looked or acted anything like her. Her better judgment would have reminded her that any affection she might have felt from him was likely a product of her imagination. Her better judgment would have reminded her that, if she loved him, it would be safer for her to keep her distance.

                But her better judgment had abandoned her. Standing there, alone in the snow, her heart and body battered, the voice of her better judgment fell silent, and she heeded only the call of her body as it turned her away from the path to her quarters and guided her feet instead towards the Commander’s tower. And so she made her way through the snow in the dead of night in search of his company, and as she walked she thought faintly of a ship on a troubled sea, turning its course towards the faint glimmer of a lighthouse in the distance. The trek was cold and silent except for the quiet crystalline sound of the snowflakes falling around her. She thought again that he must be asleep, given the hour, but her body paid no heed, and as such she did not knock when she reached his door, instead turning the handle quietly and practically falling across the threshold and into the comfort and safety of his presence.

                She looked up as she passed through the doorway, and she froze at what she saw.

                A beautiful woman was seated naked on the edge of the Commander’s desk, her hair tumbling down her back and her legs spread. Deirdre recognized her immediately as the lovely girl she had seen the Commander dancing with several times before at the Herald’s Rest. Her full lips were wet and swollen from kissing, and standing in between her legs was the Commander, naked as well and gleaming with sweat. They had frozen in their act of passion at the sound of her entry, and they looked like a pair of star-crossed lovers in a picture book. Beautiful, and strong, and deserving of more sanctity in their lovemaking than to be interrupted by a bedraggled and battle-worn elf who had no lover of her own. She met the woman’s gaze and clutched the door as a wave of dizziness threatened to buckle her knees. She was so beautiful. She deserved the love that he could give her. Deirdre did not dare meet the Commander’s gaze, so she stared at the ground instead and stuttered a mortified apology, saying “I am so- I am so sorry, I should not have come, I should have known better, it was foolish of me to think- I am so sorry” before pulling herself back through the doorway, closing the door behind her, and running away from it as if being chased. Her vision blurred and she stumbled forward, falling to her hands and knees in the snow and struggling to right herself. She rose back to her feet and continued running, the night air making the inside of her throat feel raw. She stumbled through the hallways of Skyhold, past the corridor that would have led her to Solas, through the quiet sleeping stronghold until at last she came to the main hall. She was nearly across the cavernous hall when she heard a voice.

                “Inquisitor!”

                She froze at the call, and turned. Across the hall, standing just outside the doorway through which she had come, was the Commander, clad in a loose-fitting tunic, leggings, and boots covered in snow. At first, she was amazed that he had managed to catch up with her, wondering how long after she fled he had decided to set out after her. But then, he was bigger than she was, his legs much longer. She did not meet his eyes, and instead simply shook her head and stared at the ground. She then turned and made her way towards the door to her quarters. She did not hear the sound of his steps approaching behind her, and her hand was on the door handle when she felt a grip on her elbow, pulling her away from the door and spinning her around. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the scent of him, and as she turned she found herself apologizing again, whispering “Cullen, I am so, so sorry, I am so sorry,” but her apology was cut short by the sudden press of his mouth on hers, soft and beseeching and nearly overwhelmingly warm. She felt his breath on her face and his arms wrapping around her body, pulling her to him in a protective embrace. And after a moment of pure shock, she began to kiss back, her body flaring with the unexpected warmth. She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing the length of her body against his. He felt warm and broad and solid beneath the thin fabric of his clothing. His arms moved from around her back and she felt his hands on her waist, moving slowly downwards to the round swell of her haunches, and she heard him draw in a ragged breath as he pulled her hips towards him and pushed her back against the door. She released an arm from around his neck and blindly reached backwards for the door handle, flailing about for a moment until she caught a grip of it and turned. The two of them nearly fell through the door when it opened, and once on the other side he closed it with his foot, placing his hands on her waist and lifting her with ease. She wrapped her legs around the solid breadth of his torso and slid her arms around his neck. She pressed her face into the hollow where his neck met his shoulder and breathed in the scent of him, trying to come to terms with what was happening. It had only been a few minutes since she had seen him in the throes of passion with another woman, and now he was here, carrying her up the stairs to her chamber and holding onto her as though afraid she might fly away.

                When they reached the top of the stairs, Deirdre was amazed to find that the torches were lit, a roaring fire had been kindled, and a large bathing tub had been set up in front of the hearth. Someone must have told the attendants that she had returned and asked that they do these things for her, she thought, and she wondered vaguely who it could have been when the Commander gently placed her down upon the ground. It was then that she realized she was still in her leather armor, covered with dried blood and snow, and that the feeling of her body against his must have chilled the Commander to the bone. She looked up at him and the look in his eyes nearly made her weep. He ran his fingers across her cheek and chin and brushed the hair away from her face, with a look of such tender sadness that she wondered what he was thinking.

                “What have you been doing to yourself, Deirdre?” he whispered quietly, removing her cloak and beginning to set about removing the frigid pieces of leather. He removed the gauntlets first, sliding them down over her wrists, followed by her gloves and tossing them on to the ground several feet away. Then came the chest plate, which he slid over her head and tossed away as well, followed by her boots and the leg braces, until she was left wearing only her fabric underclothes. He set to removing those next, lifting her tunic over her arms and drawing in a breath at the sight of her exposed skin. She looked down, and wondered what he must think of what he saw, comparing her body to the vision that he had clutched in his arms earlier.

                Her body was so ungenerous compared to that voluptuous woman – her hips narrow, her legs lean, her breasts small. Solas had once called her breasts his perfect green apples, but compared to the well-developed fruit she had seen on the body of that other woman, she felt that they must leave a man such as Cullen wanting. And on top of her meager form, her arms and stomach were covered in cuts and hideous bruises, all in various stages of healing, serving as glaring signs of her recent self-neglect. While trying to right the wrongs that had been done at that village outside of Redcliffe, she had thrown herself into battle without any of the reserve or thoughtful strategy that had saved her from injury on so many countless occasions before. Instead, when she saw danger, she had thrown herself towards it, drawn to it as a winged insect is drawn to the treacherous warmth of torchlight.

                And now the consequences of her recklessness were being laid bare to the Commander, who was shaking his head and studying her body with furrowed brows. “Oh, Deirdre,” he murmured softly, and he began to press light kisses onto all of the marks on her flesh. He kissed her shoulders, holding her arms out and kissing those as well, shaking his head and anointing each wound with a soft press of the lips. She closed her eyes as tears squeezed out of the corners. _Why is he doing this?_ she wondered. He kissed his way from her shoulders to her palms on each side before moving to her stomach, falling to his knees and pressing his mouth against her. She felt his hands working at the bindings of her chest band, and she let out a breath when the bindings released and her breasts were exposed to the air. He made a low sound in his throat as he studied them, stroking and kissing each one gently before taking it in his mouth. Deirdre’s knees begin to quiver as desire pooled in her stomach. _Why is he doing this? Why would he possibly want_ me _?_

The Commander’s hands made their way to the waist of her leggings, pulling them down over the swell of her buttocks and past her knees, lifting one foot and then the other to pull them off completely until she stood bare in front of him, trembling. He traced his fingers around the swell of her haunches and gently kissed her navel, pressing his face into her skin and drawing in a ragged breath. He then rose, drawing his hands away from her body, and said in a husky voice, “Wait here.”

                He made his way over to the bathing tub, adding wood to the fire the flared beneath it, and tested the heat of the water with his hands. He then lifted a bottle, unscrewed the lid, and added it to the tub, swirling it into the water with his hands and unleashing a cloud of sweet-smelling scent upon the room. Deirdre stared at him. This man always found a way to surprise her. When he was satisfied with the water, Cullen came back to her and touched her cheek, saying softly “Is it alright if I lift you up?” She nodded, and he leaned down, gathering her up in his arms and carrying her across the room to the bathing tub. He leaned down and gently placed her into the water, drenching the sleeves of his tunic up to the shoulders in sudsy water. She let out a sigh of pleasure at the feeling of the hot water enveloping her body, and she turned when the Commander kneeled beside her. “Is it alright if I join you?” he asked. She nodded again, finding herself utterly unable to speak, and he rose, swiftly removing his tunic, boots, and leggings. She watched in fascination as his body was revealed to her, the broad, rippling muscles of his chest, the bulge of his arms, the swell of his thighs and the solid length that made her breath catch. He was unbelievably beautiful. He caught the direction of her gaze and blushed, smiling shyly before he moved to enter the bathing tub behind her. He slid into place behind her and reached for one of the bottles, pouring it out into one of his hands and rubbing it to form a lather. “Lean your head back,” he said quietly, and she did as he asked. She soon felt his hands rubbing the lather into her hair, massaging her head and working the sweet-smelling soap through the layers of grime that had accumulated during her journey. “Hold your breath,” he whispered, and she soon felt a cascade of warm water over her forehead and back through her hair. Next, he grabbed a cloth and soap, and he gently washed every inch of her tired, aching body, down to her smallest toe. When he was finished, he pulled her to him so that her back was against his chest, kissing her softly and massaging her shoulders. Deirdre struggled to keep her thoughts straight. _Why is he doing this? Why did he leave his beautiful lover to come and tend to_ me _?_

A thought came to her, and it made her stomach ache. Finally, she spoke.

                “Cullen, I don’t know how to thank you. This is- I have never been treated like this in my life. You seemed to know what I needed better than I knew myself. But I- I hate to think that you would tear yourself away from that other woman to attend to me out of pity. When I came to you, I had just returned to Skyhold, and I’m sure that I presented quite a picture of…of…” He loosed his hold on her and gently guided her shoulders so that she was facing him, and he studied her. She felt her cheeks flush at the openness of his gaze.

                “Why _did_ you come to me, Deirdre? Why not wait until the morning? Until after you had had time to sleep? To gather your thoughts and plan?”             

                She shook her head and stared down at her hands, wringing helplessly beneath the water. “I came to you because… because… because I missed you. Because I was tired, and afraid, and I felt that I was drowning, and I thought that being with you, hearing your voice, would bring my head back above water. But… but I do not want you to pity me. I do not want you to attend to me out of a sense of duty, or because…”

                He caught her chin and made her look at him. “Do you think that's why I'm here, Deirdre? Out of a sense of _duty_?”

                She shrugged her shoulders. “You love another,” she said quietly.

                “I love _you_ ,” he said, suddenly and forcefully. “I have loved you since Haven. Since you forced me to look at myself and question the kind of person I had become. Since I lifted your frozen body from the snow and prayed with a faith I hadn’t felt in years that you would be spared. I have loved you since we came to Skyhold, and I spent my every waking moment trying to figure out how to make this place impenetrable and _still_ woke up in the middle of the night to a nightmare that someone had managed to infiltrate and get to you. I have loved you since the Winter Palace, when dancing with you made me feel like a king. Deirdre, you are my best friend. You are my first thought upon waking, and my last thought before falling asleep. I've slept with other women because I was lonely, and because I didn't think that you would ever want to be with someone like me after what happened when you left your clan. But even when I was with those women, my love for you never changed.”

                She felt her eyes filling with tears. After so many months of sorrow, his kindness was nearly overwhelming. “I do not deserve you, Cullen,” she whispered. “I do not deserve your goodness.”

                He tipped his head forward and pressed his forehead against hers. “Deirdre, I had made peace with loving you from a distance. And after what you said to me the last time we parted – I was convinced you wanted nothing to do with me. You… you can’t know what it meant to me to see you come through that doorway. The thought that you would seek out _my_ company before anyone else’s… it gave me a hope I had never allowed myself to have before. And to think that you came to me in your time of need, hoping to find comfort and love, and instead you found me with another woman...” He shook his head. “I could not get to you fast enough. I am not here out of a sense of _duty_ , Deirdre. I am here because I would rather be here with you than any other place in the world.”

                She reached her hands out and cupped his face, meeting his eyes. “Why would you love me, Cullen? How can you? The Prince of Skyhold deserves a strong, beautiful woman with shining golden hair and amethyst eyes.” She gave him a small, sad smile at the old joke. “You deserve a woman who can bear you beautiful children. I am… I am none of those things. I am breaking, and I fear that by the time I battle Corypheus, I will be broken entirely. I do not deserve to be with you.”

                His brows creased at her words. “Deirdre, are you saying that you would have me?” She tilted her head, confused by the question.

                “Yes, Cullen. Of course I would have you,” she said quietly.

                With that, he reached his arms out and pulled her to him in a kiss, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and cradling her in his arms. After a moment, he rose from the water and dried himself, wrapping his body in a towel before he turned to help her to her feet. She stepped delicately out of the tub, feeling her heart begin to race, and allowed him to pick her up again and carry her to her bed. He laid her gently down before lowering himself on top of her, covering her body with his own and shielding her from the cold. His kisses were soft but urgent. He took one of her breasts in his mouth and moved to lay beside her, trailing his fingers on her stomach and moving his hand slowly downward. When he reached the triangle between her legs, she spread her knees instantly, pressing her hips upwards against the touch. Her body began to hum, and she resisted the urge to let out a crooning sound. She felt as though it had been an eternity since anyone had touched her this way.

                His fingers made their way downward, and she heard him draw in a ragged breath when his fingers found her already wet with desire. He stroked her slowly but with increasing urgency before sliding a finger inside of her, watching her face as her eyes closed and she tilted her head back. She heard him move himself down to the floor, coming to his knees beside the bed and pulling her hips towards him, kissing the inside of her thighs and moving upwards. She was aware that she was speaking, but the words that fell from her mouth were unintelligible, as all of her senses were commandeered by the movement of his mouth against her. As his movements continued, and the feelings within her grew to a fever pitch, she lifted her head, and the sight of his golden head moving between her legs made her body buckle and a strangled cry escape from her. Her heart was racing, and for a moment she was unable to move, her body frozen by what she had experienced. _So long_ , her body seemed to tell her, _it has been so long..._

                At last, she reached for him, catching his hand and pulling him up to meet her. She reached a hand to grasp the part of him that she knew was aching with the desire that she felt, gripping him firmly and hearing him groan. After a moment, she sat up and came to her knees, pressing him down on to the bed and straddling his hips. She leaned down and kissed him along the seam of his square jaw as she arranged her hips above him.

                “Deirdre, are you sure this is alright?” he asked her in a strained voice. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far tonight. You’re tired, and unwell. We shouldn't rush into this. If you need time…” She kissed his shoulder, his neck, and the space right below his ear.

 _So long_ , her body told her again, _it has been so long_...

                “Yes, Commander. I am certain.”

                He stiffened at her words, and she moved her hips downward to meet him where she held him beneath her. She nearly gasped as she pressed her hips downward, taking a part of him inside of her. His breath was ragged and uneven, and she used her freed hands to press his wrists against the bed, where they grasped at the fabric. She pulled her hips upwards again, nearly removing him from her, before pressing down again, further this time, but still holding back. She continued this motion, taking more and more of him inside her each time, until at last she pulled herself up and pressed herself all the way against him, jutting her hips down. He let out a hoarse groan and tried to lift his arms, but she pressed them down again, moving her hips against him and gasping at the rhythm. She knew that he could overpower her easily, that he could lift his arms and do whatever he wanted with them, and she savored the fact that he did not. Instead, he let her pin him there and roll her hips against him, closing his eyes and straining his head backwards. She kissed his neck, gently nibbled at his jaw, and let out breaths of desire into his ear. Finally, she released his wrists, and his arms instantly wrapped around her. One hand pressed against the small of her back as he moved so that he was on top of her, and he lifted her hips and slid himself inside of her with a guttural moan. She gripped his hips with her knees and moved in time against him, moving her fingers along the breadth of his back and letting out soft cries. After so many months of pain and numbness, she felt like she was being reborn.

                _So long_ , her body murmured. _So long_...

                “I love you,” she whispered suddenly, and his hands flew to her hips and held them there as he thrust himself inside of her, and she heard his strangled cry. She watched his face as he found release, and it was as though a lifetime of cares and worries had been erased from him. He looked young, and innocent, and heartbreakingly beautiful. He reached a hand towards her face and brushed away the strands of hair in front of her eyes, cupping her cheek and meeting her gaze. “I love you too,” he told her, and her heart churned in her chest. She felt her eyes filling with tears. She loved him. She truly loved him.

                _How can you do this to him?_ she wondered. _How can you be so selfish_?

                How could she have pulled this beautiful creature into her web of sorrows? How could she have drawn him from between the legs of a woman who might have loved him properly just to pin him within the prison of her own? Cullen was speaking, but she could not hear his words. Tears slipped out of her eyes and before she could wipe them away, one fell onto the hand that cupped her face. He froze.

                “What’s wrong, Deirdre?” he asked, his face heartbreakingly uncertain. “Do you regret what’s happened? Do you want me to leave?” She pressed her lips against his, tasting the salt of her tears. He was still holding her, and he was so beautiful, and he was _there_. He was not like Solas. He would not disappear in the middle of long journeys, would not claim her heart and leave her to fend for herself when she needed him most, would not seclude himself behind a wall of formality and coldly advise her to think of the bigger picture when she felt herself breaking apart into a thousand pieces.

                “Please don’t leave me, Cullen,” she whispered quietly, and he shook his head.

                “I will never leave you, Deirdre,” he told her softly. “I will remain by your side for as long as you will have me.”

                She reached up a hand and touched his jaw, hesitantly, suddenly shy. “Will you stay with me, tonight? Will you sleep with me? I am so, so tired.”

                She regretted the words as soon as she spoke them, realizing that she sounded like a clingy, heartsick young girl and that she was asking all of the things that she had been afraid to ask Solas for fear of pushing him away. But to her surprise, the Commander stroked her jaw and gave her a crooked smiled.

                “I was hoping you would ask me that.”

                With that, her last reserves of energy left her. She felt that she could hardly move as he slid down alongside her, pulling the blankets over them and sliding her body to his. Under the blankets, he reached for her hand, and he laced his fingers with hers and rested them against her stomach. While she struggled to make sense of all that had happened, she felt her exhaustion cresting like a wave. She fell asleep within minutes, and, for the first time in months, she was met with a restful sleep free from dreams.

                Her first night with the Commander. The first night of her new life.


	18. Taking Steps

                It did not take long for Fen’Harel’s followers to realize that his lover would not wake from her slumber.

                On the first night of her long sleep, they were awoken in the darkness to receive firm and urgent orders – all critical possessions must be gathered and transported through various eluvians and deposited in safe locations. They had approximately two and a half days to empty the fortress of all important items, including the eluvians themselves. After that, they were to leave the fortress and relocate to an as-yet-undisclosed location.

                Curious and uneasy, they murmured amongst themselves about whether the threat of detection was the cause of their sudden departure. However, the Dread Wolf’s scouts were grim and close-lipped on the subject. Abelas too was silent, and Fen’Harel had locked himself in his library. He was not to be disturbed.

                The sense of mystery only intensified when the first group of chambermaids entered the Dread Wolf’s quarters to find the Inquisitor still and motionless in the wide bed, despite her lover’s long absence. After several moments of uncertainty, they went about their business, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake her and, thus, risk their master’s ire. However, as time passed, and a certain amount of noise became inevitable, they came to realize that no amount of sound seemed to disturb the sleeping woman. Eventually, some of them approached the bedside, beginning to wonder with racing hearts whether the Inquisitor had somehow died in her sleep. However, a touch of fingers to her cheek and in front of her mouth allayed that fear – she was alive, and still breathing. She was living, but she seemed utterly lost to the world.

                One of the women began clapping her hands near the Inquisitor’s face, snapping her fingers, and nervously nudging the woman’s sleeping form. There was no response. The Inquisitor was still, except for the movement of her eyes beneath their closed lids, and the occasional restless grasping of her fingers on the bedsheet.

                “ _Uthenera_?” one of the chambermaids whispered. “Could it be that she has fallen into the long sleep?”

                “ _Nonsense_ ,” another one hissed. “She is not ancient elvhen – she is not even a mage. She could never achieve such a feat. More likely her illness has cast her into an unnaturally deep slumber, and that’s all.”

                “But – perhaps Fen’Harel has done it?” another ventured, her eyes moving to the woman’s sleeping form. “As a way to save her from her sickness?”

                The second chambermaid let out a sound through her teeth. “What a fanciful idea that is. Fen’Harel has more pressing matters on his mind than extending the life of this pathetic creature. He would never waste his power on such a thing.”

                “He’s gone to great lengths to bring her here,” the first chambermaid said slowly, “and to keep her here. It doesn’t seem hard to believe that he would take that risk.” Her eyes moved to the sleeping Inquisitor, a puzzled look on her face. “I wonder what hold she has on him!”

                The third chambermaid spoke then, her face flushed with a conspiratorial glow. “I heard from one of the elves who used to serve the Dread Wolf in Skyhold that the first night the Inquisitor lay with her shemlen husband, she found him making love to another woman and took him into her bed on the same night. _Apparently_ , the shemlen woman was left alone and humiliated in the man’s chamber, and she bore a grudge against the Inquisitor for the rest of her days. She told the story to anyone who would listen.”

                The first chambermaid’s eyes widened and moved back to the sleeping woman. “ _On the same night_?” she whispered, and the beginnings of a wicked grin began to play at the edges of her mouth. “What a scandal!”

                The second chambermaid scowled. “She is not worthy of a man such as Fen’Harel,” she said decidedly.

                The first chambermaid, who also happened to be the youngest, still had the devilish grin on her face. “Maybe we’re too hard on the woman. I’ve heard her husband is quite dashing, for a shemlen, and she does seem to have an air for the… dramatic. Perhaps she just couldn’t resist the spectacle…” she paused, and lifted her eyebrows coyly, “…or the romp.” At this, the third chambermaid choked back a laugh, and the second chambermaid’s face creased into an even greater look of disdain, until their conversation was interrupted by the low, even tones of a man’s voice.

                “Are you three finished making this woman the source of your mirth? You’ve never spared a kind word for her before, so I somehow doubt that your merriment now stems from any sort of good feeling towards her.”

                The women stiffened. It was Abelas.

                The second chambermaid, who was the eldest of the group, straightened to her full height and addressed him.

                “Please accept our apologies, Abelas. The sight of the sleeping Inquisitor has caused much confusion for many of us, which should come as no great surprise. Even you must admit that this is all a curious turn of events. Perhaps if you or Fen’Harel were to give us more insight into what is going on, people would be less inclined to speculate about what is happening based on idle gossip and rumors.”

                “Fen’Harel is under no obligation to disclose any of his information or plans to any of us,” Abelas said coolly. “These were the conditions under which you made your vow of loyalty, and these are the conditions under which each of us continue in our support of him. If you or your charges find these conditions unsuitable, perhaps it would be advisable that you leave.”

                The two younger chambermaids shifted uneasily, their eyes fixed on the ground, and the eldest chambermaid gave a respectful bow.

                “That will not be necessary, Abelas. I apologize for this episode, and I will see to it that this does not happen again.”

                With that, she stepped away from the bed, skirted closely by the other two women. The youngest chambermaid took one last, curious look at the Inquisitor, but she knew better than to speak.

                Abelas himself then stepped closer to the bed and studied the woman sleeping there. He was acutely aware that he was surrounded by curious spectators masquerading as industrious chambermaids, and, as such, he suppressed the urge to physically react to the sight that met him. Instead, he stood stiff and still while his mind roiled.

                Had Fen’Harel truly done it? After everything that Abelas had done to convince him otherwise, had the Dread Wolf truly chosen to walk down that path?

                Doing his best to maintain a calm and stoic demeanor, Abelas left the Inquisitor’s bedside and made his way to the Dread Wolf’s library, determined to speak with him. However, when he reached the library doors, he found that Fen’Harel was already emerging, arrayed in full armor with a wolf pelt draped over his shoulders. When he met Abelas’ gaze, he grimaced.

                “So you’ve seen her, I take it? Please, spare me your preaching, Abelas,” he said in a weary, irritated voice. “I have made my decision.”

                “But, Fen’Harel, how can-”

                “ _Enough_ , Abelas.” His voice was like flint, now, and Abelas fell silent.

                “I have made my decision, Abelas, and I will see it done. I do not expect you to understand my motives, but I would ask that you do not make any further attempts to stop me.”

                Something in Abelas’ gaze must have given the other man pause, for the Dread Wolf stood still for a moment, and placed his hand on his shoulder.

                “You know something of loss, I think, Abelas. It’s a knowledge that we share. I lost a world, once, through my ill-placed decisions. You lost a life’s work – a higher calling, a sense of doing what was right.”

                “Fen’Harel…” Abelas said slowly, but he grew silent when the other man continued to speak.

                “I gave up a world for what I thought was something better. I kept nothing of that world, because I thought there was nothing that could be missed from it. I did what I thought was right, and I came to realize that I had made a terrible mistake. I have paid the price for that mistake every day since. But I learned a lesson, and I am determined to act upon it: I learned to understand the things in my life that are truly worth keeping. So although I’m bound to see my actions set right, I _will not_ make the same mistake again. I _will not_ fail to recognize the thing in this world that is worth keeping, nor will I fail to do _everything_ within my power to keep it. Without it, I will wake up in the world that I have restored for our people, finally absolved of my past mistakes, and have absolutely nothing worth living for. Can’t you a least _try_ to understand that, Abelas?” He let out a breath, withdrawing his hand from his companion’s shoulder and moving his gaze down the hallway, looking suddenly anxious to leave. “If I let her go, my life will be nothing but a constant reminder that there can be no joy for me in _any_ world if she is not in it.”

                Abelas sighed.

                “She loves her husband deeply, Fen’Harel. I’ve asked you this before, and I will do so again: how do you think she will react when she discovers that he is lost to her forever? And as for her husband – although we may vacate this fortress before he reaches us, he will continue to track us until your deed is done. How have you accounted for him in your plans?”

                A grim frown settled over the Dread Wolf’s face.

                “I am taking steps to address the issue of the Inquisitor’s husband,” he said calmly. “As chance would have it, I’m on my way to meet him now. He and I have much to speak about, I think. And once we do, I’m confident that he will not attempt to interfere with us anymore.”

                Abelas fought to keep his voice steady. “Are you going to kill him?” he asked, and Fen’Harel studied him.

                “Are you still determined to make your plan bear fruit, Abelas? After everything that I’ve just said, are you still determined to see them reunited, and see me led back into the fold?”

                “Answer my question, please, Fen’Harel.”

                Fen’Harel raised an eyebrow and let out a sigh. “Am I going to kill him?” he asked, stepping away from the other man and moving down the hallway. “Well, that rather depends on him, Abelas.”

                Abelas had no response to the statement. Knowing that any offer to accompany the Dread Wolf would be refused, he simply watched as the man made his way down the hallway at a clipped pace, his shoulders set, and his armor gleaming.

                Abelas thought grimly of the Inquisitor’s husband, making his desperate way towards them through the rugged mountains, and he felt a wave of unease wash over him. He had meant to do right by the man – he had meant to do right by all of them, in contriving to reunite the Commander and the Inquisitor, but he felt with a sense of growing dread that he had failed. For while Abelas did not fully understand the game that Fen’Harel was playing, he became more certain with each passing moment that that it was a game he would not lose.


	19. "We Are Neither of Us Perfect Men"

 

                Although the air around him was all midnight blackness, the golden-haired Commander felt as though the springtime chill had taken on a physical presence, one that fought and coiled with the small fire in his solitary campsite. He was traveling alone, now.

                The break with his party members had left many of them astonished, but he stood firm in his resolution to go on alone. For after several days of rumination on the contents of Vivienne’s letter and the heretofore-unconsidered depths of his rival’s love for his wife, Cullen’s thoughts were left muddled on many points but utterly clear on one: that the end of this journey was his, and his alone. It was not only dangerous to bring his companions along with him, it was foolhardy. Vivienne was right. All along, he had been taking the wrong approach, treating the search for his wife as though it were a campaign, something to be bested through maps, and troop movements, and subterfuge. But none of those things had taken his wife from them, and none of them would bring her back. What had taken her from him was love – love for him, or for his rival, or – and perhaps most likely, although it pained him to consider it—love for both. And although he had sought from the beginning to swell the ranks of those who aided him in his search, he had come to understand in the last several days that, in the end, there were only three people who truly had any part to play in this story: himself, his wife, and the creature called Solas.

                And so he had traveled on alone, forcing his companions to give their word that they would not follow him, and he had not stopped moving for more than a few hours at a time since he left them. While he advanced, the specter of exhaustion seemed to peer at him from the shadows that loomed around him. In the day, he thought he saw its shape in dark havens created by rock banks and evergreen trees, the kinds of haunts his wife was fond of disappearing into. In the night, it was everywhere. He wished that he could sleep.

                He had stopped his forward movement now because the darkness had fallen so thickly and so oppressively that it hindered his ability to advance with any amount of efficiency. During the day, a thick bank of clouds had blanketed the sky overhead without breaking, and as the day turned to night there was no companionable moonlight to guide his steps. He had had to relent, and stall his movements until the darkness began to wane.

                Sitting beside his small fire, his back to the darkness, he felt utterly alone. He drew his knees up to his chest and, for a moment, he closed his eyes, resting his forehead against his knees. He was so exhausted that, when a voice spoke to him suddenly from across the campfire, he did not even move to grasp his sword. For he recognized the voice, and he knew better than to take up arms against the speaker. This was not a battle to be won by force.

                “When I first met the woman we would all come to call the Inquisitor, I found myself faced with an altogether unfamiliar feeling: I wanted very much to impress her. The more time that I spent around her, the more that I desired her favor, and as a result I sometimes did foolish things. One such foolish thing was done during our early travels to the Forbidden Oasis, while we were attempting to close a rift. Thinking to impress her with the strength of my arcane abilities, I focused all of my attention and energy on the casting of a particularly flashy spell… one that later became one of Dorian’s favorites, amusingly. I succeeded in casting it, but I was so depleted after its completion that I had nothing left with which to face the enemy that had approached me from behind while I was casting.

                “It was an unforgivable error. I had only regained a small part of my strength at that time, and the idea that I would be so focused on casting a spell as to become utterly unaware of my surroundings was a humiliatingly novice mistake. But, as it happened, the Inquisitor _had_ been watching, and she dispatched my assailant in her usual way: quickly, and with little fanfare. Hours later, we were sitting by the fire in camp, much as you and I are seated now, long after the rest of the party had gone to sleep, and we had been sitting in silence for nearly an hour before she spoke to me. ‘Solas,’ she said, ‘you really ought to be more conscious of conserving your energy in combat. You are a formidable foe and your magical abilities are truly impressive, but they are no good to anyone if you are too weak to use them, and they are of even less use if you are dead.’

                "While she meant well, my pride was wounded by this. Words of criticism, from the woman I desired so inexplicably to please?

                “‘Offering me advice on magic, Herald?’ I asked her, for she was still the Herald then. ‘Do you often given advice to people on subjects that you are not familiar with?' My words were petulant, and cutting, but her response was a smile.

                “‘Your words are true,' she told me. 'I do not have any special skill or ability. I have no art to master or craft to fine tune. I have only my body, and that is not a very impressive tool. But what I have been able to accomplish with it is this: I have gained the knowledge of how to stay alive, no matter the circumstances.’

                “I was feeling guilty for my harsh response to her advice, and in my penitence I imagined that her words were self-deprecating. And so I told her, very gravely: ‘We live in a dangerous world, Herald. Knowing how to stay alive in it is no small skill.’ At which point her smile only widened, and her eyes danced, and she seemed to stifle a laugh before she said to me: ‘I know it is, you fool. That’s why I said it.’”

                Cullen let out a low, even breath.

                “If she were here, Cullen, I imagine that she would tell you that you need to give yourself time to rest on this journey. She would tell you that you have run yourself ragged, and that you won’t be able to do any valiant rescuing if you’re beyond the point of exhaustion by the time you reach your destination. That is what she would tell you, I’m sure, but I am less certain about whether or not you would listen.”

                Cullen lifted his head from his knees and moved his gaze to the man who now sat across the fire from him. He had not seen Solas since before the fall of Corypheus, and he understood, suddenly, why his wife had struggled to speak of him. She had refused to call him Solas, instead referring to him only as Fen’Harel, and Cullen had resented the distinction. He had resented even more hearing the one-time ally referred to as “Lord Fen’Harel,” inwardly seething at the idea that the devious blue-eyed apostate who had always seemed to him little more than a well-educated but beggarly hermit had been given the distinction of any form of rank. It had seemed to Cullen that by referring to their betrayer as anything but Solas, they were giving undue power to him, and elevating him beyond what he was into something altogether more threatening. It had never occurred to him before that moment that the name and title might truly suit the creature who now bore it.

                It only took a moment for him to realize his mistake. For the man who sat across from him was undoubtedly Solas – his sharp chin, glinting eyes, and smooth scalp could leave no doubt of that— but it also was not Solas. For this man was not wearing neutral toned rags with bare feet, and he did not have a gnarled wooden staff strapped to his back. This man was wearing armor – armor that was gleaming, ornate, and exceedingly well-made, with a wolf pelt draped over his shoulder. This man did not have the diminutive set of his shoulders and the passive manner that had typified the elven apostate. This man’s shoulders were held taut in a fashion that had become familiar to the Commander in persons of power, and his manner was that of a calm and calculating adversary, one that respected his opponent but had no doubt about his ability to best him. Everything that Cullen had understood to mean Solas, this man was not. The effect was uncanny, and Cullen reflected again on the trauma that his wife must have faced upon meeting him again after stepping through that eluvian. For if Cullen was unsettled by the change in a man that he had scarcely known, how must it have been for her to face the man she once loved, transformed into a stranger?

                “Where is she, Solas?” he asked at length, and the elf scowled at him.

                “I see you have not listened to a word I’ve said," he said curtly. "You know where she is, Cullen. You should not waste time on such foolish questions. You ought to ask me whether or not I will allow you to reach her.”

                “How is she?”

                The elven man raised an eyebrow.

                “ _How is she_?” he repeated. “Well, she took a hot bath earlier, and now she is sleeping soundly,” he said with a cool smile. “And now that you are done interrogating _me_ about _her_ , I might inquire as to how all of the women that _you’ve_ called into your bed since parting from _your_ wife are faring. Where are they now? And how are _they_? Or do you pay them no mind, now that you have used them and thrown them aside? And how am I to know that you won’t do the same to her, someday, if I allow you to be reunited with her?”

                The Commander felt heat rise in his face, his exhaustion suddenly gone. Solas or not Solas, this creature had certainly maintained the ability to get under his skin.

                “You ass,” he growled. “How dare you say that? How dare you even mention…?”

                “How long after she was gone did you wait to take another woman? A month, maybe two?”     

                Cullen raised a hand, as if to silence him.

                “What difference does it make?" he hissed. "I would _never_ choose another woman over her. I love her. She is my _wife_. Are you saying that my love for her is somehow unreliable because I… because I slept with other women in her absence?”

                “That is not what I said, my friend, but you seem to have done an admirable job of drawing that conclusion yourself,” the elf snapped. “And to that end, I would inform you that I did not see Deirdre for _two years_ after I left the Inquisition, and during that time I never so much as _looked_ at another woman. There has been no-one for me but her since our first meeting. Meanwhile, I was forced to watch you bandy about with chambermaids and tavern women and nobleman’s daughters for _years_ , only to find that you _still_ have the audacity to call yourself the loyal suitor between us. _You_ , who waited until Deirdre was vulnerable and hurting before making any advance on her. _You,_ who did not even have the self-control to give her a single night after her return to Skyhold before setting yourself on her like a mongrel dog that caught the scent of blood. _You_ , who have the constancy of a rutting ass. _You_ , who-”

                Cullen sprang to his feet, nearly overcome with rage.

                “Enough of this. You’re blinded by bitterness, Solas, and I didn’t come here to sling poison with a spurned ex-lover. If you’ll excuse me, I am going to go rescue my wife from the _prison_ that you’re keeping her in.”

                With that, he stalked away from the circle of the fire, making his way again into the night. The man’s voice followed him.

                “‘ _Spurned ex-lover’_?” he said coolly. “You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that your wife's relationship with me ended when her relationship with you began.”

             Cullen froze for a moment, feeling his stomach clench and wondering at the myriad possibilities that those words implied, before settling his face into a grim scowl and taking another step. From behind him, the elf let out a deep breath, and spoke again. This time, his tone was more even.

                “Believe it or not, I did not come here to fight with you either. If you will give me the liberty of speaking a bit longer, I will return to my planned approach to this conversation.”

                Cullen let out an angry breath, somewhere between a sigh and a growl, but his movement ceased.

                “I did not come all this way in the middle of the night to question your sexual fidelity. I came here to make you understand that if you do not cease this journey, in six months’ time Deirdre will be dead, and lost to us both.”

                At these words, the Commander felt a chill pass through his body.

                “Certainly you do not think that my bringing her to me when I did was simply an act of jealousy? I am trying to protect her, Cullen. Our goal is the same. The difference is our knowledge of what is to come, and our ability to save her from it.”

                Cullen felt his shoulders stiffen, and a dull throb began between his temples. _Checkmate_ , he thought, somewhere in the back of his mind.

                “What are you saying, Solas?”

                “I am saying that I have spent the last several years working to achieve a goal that will result in the destruction of this world and all the people in it, and that in six months’ time my work will be completed.”

                Cullen felt another chill at the calm tone with which he spoke.

                “You would destroy this world, and destroy her with it?”

                “I will destroy this world, as I have no choice about that. But whether or not she is to be destroyed along with it is for _you_ to decide.”

                The Commander lifted his hand to his face and pressed his fingers against his closed eyes, letting out a low breath. Slowly, he turned back towards the fire.

                Fen’Harel regarded him from where he sat, his breath visible in the air.

                “I started badly, Cullen, and for that, I apologize. I came here to speak to you of what you do, by seeking to take Deirdre from me, and to give you a choice.”

                Cullen made his way slowly back to the fire, dropping back to the ground with his hand over his mouth. “I’m listening,” he said after a time.

                “I noticed after the fall of Haven that you began to exhibit a nearly obsessive concern for Deirdre’s safety,” the elf said, his voice crisp and matter-of-fact. “It was not until the events at the Winter Palace, however, that I came to understand the true depths of your feelings for her. It was an unpleasant thing for me to watch, on multiple levels. On one level, I resented you for your paternalism – for treating a woman as capable as Deirdre as if she did not have the capacity to take care of herself. But on a deeper level, it angered me because I recognized the futility of your efforts. For despite your ever-watchful gaze, despite how much you might wish to create a barrier between her and the dangers of the world, the fact remains that she is _mortal_ , and one day she _must_ die, no matter what you or any of the other members of the Inquisition did to try to stop it.”

                Cullen let his hand fall from his mouth, moving it to a small pouch that held his wife’s gold bracelet. “Cullen, do not let him speak to you,” Sylaise had told him. “Do not listen to a word he says. He is a master manipulator, and he weaves spells with words as skillfully as he does with magic. Do not let him take you in.”

                _But what if master manipulators speak the truth_? he thought ruefully.

                “Now, during the course of time that has passed since I left the Inquisition, I have been searching for a way to make Deirdre immortal,” Fen’Harel continued, his voice gaining momentum, “and I believe that I have found it. There is a way for me to spare her from the death that haunts her footsteps. But there is a price that must be paid for it, Cullen.”

                “And the price for it is that I must never see her again?” the Commander interjected. “Is that what you’re saying?”

                The elf nodded grimly. “That is your choice, Cullen. If you will it to be so, I will bring Deirdre here tonight. I will wake her from her sleep, and return her to you, and she will be by your side until the very end.”

                “And my other option is to agree to stop my pursuit of her, and have your word that you will give her…” his breath caught. He could hardly believe that he was speaking the words. “That you will save her from the destruction you plan, and give her immortal life?”  

                The elf nodded again, but did not speak.

                “Have you asked Deirdre about this option? If this is what she wants, all she has to do is tell me so,” the Commander said in a quiet voice.

                “I have not asked her,” Fen’Harel said bluntly. “I have not asked her, because I believe her judgment to be clouded. Her mind is currently fixated on you. If I were to release her now, she would return to you, knowing nothing of what is at stake.”

                Despite himself, Cullen felt a surge of warmth in his chest. _She wanted to come back to him_.

                “And you expect me to agree to a plan where my wife remains a prisoner against her will?” he asked sharply.

                “I had hoped that you would be able to do what she is not: to look past the short-term and to consider what is the best path forward for her long term future. What do you desire more: the presence of your wife by your side for a few brief months, or the knowledge that she will be freed forever from the perils of mortal life?”

                “And what reason do I have to trust that you? You’ve betrayed her before – how do I know that you won’t do it again? How do I know that this isn’t some sort of power play to rob the Inquisition of the only member who stands a real chance of stopping you?”

                Fen’Harel regarded him.

                “If I wanted to rid the Inquisition of its Inquisitor, Cullen, I would have done so a long time ago. It would have been easy – very, very easy. Much easier, I think, than what I am proposing to you now. As to why you should trust me? You have no real reason to trust me. But even without trusting me, you face the same set of alternatives: certain death for the woman you love, or the possibility that she can be spared from it. Whether or not you trust me does not change what is at stake.”

                Cullen absently twirled the thin gold bracelet between his fingers, beginning to feel the haze of exhaustion hemming in more closely around his thoughts. After so many months, why had it chosen to catch up with him _now_?

                After several minutes of silence, Fen’Harel spoke again.

                “Two years ago your wife and I had a similar conversation to this one. In that conversation, as with this one, I gave her a choice: leave the Inquisition and join me, or risk putting the lives of the people that she loves in danger.”

                The Commander felt his brows draw together in a seething glare. He had always suspected that Deirdre’s departure had been against her will, but hearing it stated so bluntly filled him with anger.

                “You _coerced_ her? You _threatened_ her? How could you?”

                Fen’Harel lifted his eyes and his gaze locked with the other man’s, the expression sardonic.

                “I have lived far longer than you, Cullen, and I have learned to take whatever steps are necessary to do what needs to be done. I play the long game. I use whatever resources are available to me, no matter how cunning. To your eyes, I appear cruel. And under such a judgment, perhaps I am cruel. But you are by no means free from fault. You are a man who has spent his life at the mercy of sensory influences. You have been dependent on lyrium, an addiction that held you in its grip for years, and would have continued to do so if Deirdre hadn’t pulled you out of it. You have done unspeakable things on behalf of the Templars, perpetuating violence and oppression in the hopes of gaining power. You have bedded elven prostitutes and turned your face from the squalor that they lived in, and never once have you mentioned this to your wife.”

                He paused for a moment, as if to allow his words a moment to sink in before he continued.

                “We are neither of us perfect men.”

                Cullen averted his eyes, feeling a thin film of sweat form over his brow. Despite the armor that he wore, he felt exposed. How had this man come to know so much about his past?

                “The reason that I mention this conversation with Deirdre is so that you might consider the choice she made. She chose to give you up, in exchange for a promise of your safety. To her, there was never any question in the matter. She put your safety before her own wishes. Perhaps this is something you will keep in mind while making your decision.”

                The combination of anger, heartache, and exhaustion had begun to take its toll on the Commander. He drew a hand to his face, trying to make sense of his thoughts.

                “Wouldn’t it be possible for you to return Deirdre to me, and then come back for her before…?” his words trailed off as he realized the improbability of what he was saying.

                “That is not an option. Any interaction between myself and the Inquisition during that time would present far too many risks. In addition, doing so would likely place even more strain on Deirdre. I am sorry, Cullen, but it is simply out of the question.”

                Cullen pressed his fingers into his eyes, becoming aware of a faint ringing in the back of his mind.

                “Would it be possible to…”

                Fen’Harel’s voice was gentle, but firm.

                “There are two options, Cullen. I return Deirdre to you tonight and she perishes with you in six months, or you call off your search and allow me to bring her with me into the future world.”

                The decision might have been easier, perhaps, if the Commander did not believe in his heart that his wife truly did love the creature who sat across from him. He had fought the knowledge tooth and nail, and sought to erase every sign that the blue-eyed elf had ever existed to prevent his wife from ever being reminded of what may have been, but he was beginning to wonder if what the Dread Wolf offered her was more than he had a right to refuse. For he had seen her slip into the painted tower at Skyhold when she thought no-one was watching, and he had heard her weeping in her sleep when her mind was unguarded. He had seen the way she struggled to talk about him, and he had seen the shadows in her eyes when her allies asked if she would have the strength to kill him if she had the chance. Cullen knew very little about his wife’s relationship with Solas, but he had learned from Dorian that she was not the responsible party in ending it. She had loved Solas first, he thought sadly, and if Solas had not ended what was between them, who was to say she would ever have loved him at all?

                After several minutes of silence, Fen’Harel spoke again.

                “Deirdre told me once that her life had been stolen by the Inquisition. She said she had agreed to become the Inquisitor because she thought it would be temporary – that it would be necessary for her to bear that burden only until Corypheus was defeated. Slowly, though, she came to understand that she would never get back what had been taken from her. ‘I will never be Deirdre again,’ she told me. ‘I have lost her. I will be the Inquisitor until the end of my days.’ And she was right. But I can save her from that fate. I can give her life back to her, and with more years than she could have imagined. I can give her the time she needs to put to rest the Inquisitor, and lead Deirdre back out into the light of the world. I can give her the time she needs to feel that her life is her own again, and that her time as the Inquisitor is only one small part of her tale.” Fen’Harel paused. “I have done everything that is necessary to accomplish this goal, Cullen. The only thing standing in my way is you.”

                The Commander put his head in his hands, thinking bitterly that he ought to have seen this coming. Vivienne’s words of advice echoed in the back of his mind: “ _He is not behaving as any normal enemy might, and you must plan accordingly._ ” And yet, how _could_ you plan for something like this?

                Perhaps this is what Deirdre had understood that he had not. For if she had thought there was a way of escaping this fate, why wouldn’t she have told anyone about the ultimatum Fen’Harel had given her? Why would she have fled to him, rather than rallying behind the people who loved her and trying to fight? Why would she have treated as inevitable something that there was any hope of resisting?

                He tried to calm his mind and focus on the choice in front of him. In his heart, the urge to see his wife again threatened to overpower every logical thought. The thought of holding her against him, of hearing her voice, and of falling asleep with her beside him made him feel as though there was no price he was not willing to pay. But then he forced his mind to move forward, day by day after this theoretical reunion, and he considered the dread and turmoil that would face him as he counted every minute of their movement closer and closer towards death. Would he tell her about Fen’Harel’s offer, and how he had consigned her to imminent death because he was too selfish to let her go? Or would he withhold the knowledge, and face in the final moments of his life the cruel reality that he might have spared the woman he loved from a horrible fate?

                He thought momentarily of challenging Solas – of rising to his feet and running him through with a sword before he had time to react – but he knew that any such attempts would fail. He was exhausted, weakened, and alone, and his adversary possessed far greater magical skill than any opponent the Commander had ever bested during the height of his career as a Templar. There would be no winning such a fight.

                And so he sat in silence, agonizing over what to do, while in the back of his mind he slowly began to accept that there was no question as to the option that he must choose. For it seemed to him that every step he had taken since lifting Deirdre’s frozen body from the snow had led him to this moment. Every night spent in anxious rumination over her protection, every reevaluation of guard allocations and attempt to convince her to stay out of the line of fire since the fall of Haven had come to _this_. He could give her, at last, the safety that he had always yearned for. And all that was asked of him was to say yes. He could die knowing that, in spite of his heartache, she lived on.

                The Commander had no sense of how much time had passed as he sat in silence, wrestling with an unthinkable choice, and by the time that Fen’Harel spoke again, exhaustion had crept into every corner of his body, making his mind move slowly, his thoughts advancing thickly as if through a fog.

                “The night is nearly at an end, Cullen,” Fen’Harel said calmly. “And I must leave you now. What is your decision?”

                Cullen stared at the frosted ground beneath his feet, unable to form the words. Fen’Harel rose.

                “I take it from your silence that you have chosen to end your campaign. It likely comes as little comfort to you now, but you are making the right choice.”

                Cullen found it exceedingly difficult to speak.

                “Solas – if she asks you…”

                “She will understand,” the elf said quietly. He stepped around the fire and stood beside where Cullen sat, holding out a hand. “This belongs to you, I believe,” he said, and when Cullen lifted his hand, his wife’s ring was placed into his palm.

                At the sight of it, Cullen felt a momentary resistance, a sudden urge to change his mind and demand his wife be brought to him, but it was over nearly before it began. Instead, he folded the small metal band between his fingers. Fen’Harel stepped away from him, pausing at the outer rim of the fire and speaking again.

                “We are completing an evacuation of the fortress on your map, and we will be gone by the time you reach it. I do not tell you this because I think that you will change your mind – on the contrary, I trust to your integrity that you will no longer try to interfere. I tell you this so that if any of your companions do not agree with the arrangement that we have made here, they will know that they are wasting their time advancing any further on that location.” There was a pause, in which Fen’Harel turned for one last look at Cullen, who met his gaze evenly.

                “They will not interfere,” the Commander said firmly, and Fen’Harel nodded.

                “Good. Farewell, Cullen Rutherford. Live well, while time remains.”

                After those final words of parting, Fen’Harel’s figure disappeared into the darkness, and Cullen was alone again. Sometime during their long silence, Fen’Harel had stoked the fire, and it shimmered and crackled in front of him. Had he done the right thing? Was she finally _truly_ safe?

                Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he drew his bedroll from his pack, spreading it out on the ground beside the fire and crawling into it slowly and deliberately. After examining his wife’s ring, as if to convince himself of the truth of everything that had just occurred, he closed his eyes.

                Within moments, darkness had overtaken him, just as the morning sun began to poke its first tendrils of light over the horizon.


	20. No Loyalty Greater

 

                Had the followers of Fen’Harel not been entirely focused on the evacuation of their stone fortress in the mountains, and had Fen’Harel’s most trusted advisors not already traveled forth to oversee the preparations of their new lodgings, then someone might have noticed that Abelas was nowhere to be found on the night that Fen'Harel and the Commander had their meeting. Had they not finished clearing the Dread Wolf’s chambers earlier in the day, the chambermaids might have noticed that the bed holding the Inquisitor was empty. But no-one did notice. Every inhabitant of the fortress had been awake for nearly a full day, and those who were still toiling were not willing to spare the energy needed to check in on the woman who had been sleeping safely for the seemingly countless hours that they had been working. Despite the repercussions of their past neglect, prejudice is not easily remedied, and the Inquisitor was left again without a keeper.

                As a result of this lack of oversight, no-one was aware that the solemn-eyed elf had gathered the sleeping Inquisitor and fled with her out into the night, making use of hidden tunnels and doorways that very few of the Dread Wolf’s followers knew existed. They did not know that he made his way through the night on the same journey as Fen’Harel himself, and they did not know that he stood cloaked in magic and darkness as the conversation between the Dread Wolf and the Inquisitor’s husband dragged itself into the early hours of the morning. They did not know that when Fen’Harel at last departed, satisfied that he had done what he needed to do, and the golden-haired man crawled into his bedroll with the manner of someone who has accepted death, both of them were watched with anxious anticipation. They did not know that several minutes after Fen'Harel's disappearance, Abelas moved forward from the shadows, placing the sleeping Inquisitor gently on the ground and working to rouse her husband. They did not know that the Dread Wolf was making his way towards a fortress now empty of the sole thing he felt was worth protecting, and that soon their lives would irrevocably change. They did not know, and so they rested peacefully, and waited for dawn.

 

                When Abelas woke the Commander from his slumber, he tried to be gentle, aware of the exhaustion that had seeped its way into the very marrow of the other man's bones. He wanted to prevent the Inquisitor’s husband from experiencing any more agitation than he had already suffered. And when the man awoke, and seemed to think that he were either dead or dreaming, Abelas was patient, and told him in a calm, even tone, “My name is Abelas, and I am here to help you.”

                But Abelas’ gentle ministrations seemed to have little effect, as at the sight of the Inquisitor curled up beside the fire, her face decorated by a dancing pattern of shadow and light, the Commander roused himself instantly, forcefully shoving Abelas away and springing to his feet, coming to stand in between the two elves and grasping his sword.

                “What is the meaning of this?” he asked in a strained voice. “I have just spent the entire night discussing with Solas why my wife can never be returned to me, and yet here she is. You are one of the people that follow him, I assume? And yet you have turned against him and brought her to me? And put her life in danger in the process?”

                Abelas regarded him evenly, and took a deep breath. He had been told of the fiery nature of the Inquisitor's husband.

                “Allow me to start over," he said evenly. "My name is Abelas. A very, very long time ago I took an oath to protect a sacred well, and I protected it for many long centuries, while all around it was destroyed or fell into disuse and disrepair. I maintained my post until one day the woman that you call your wife arrived at that well, and she made the decision to drink from it. All that the sacred well was became a part of her. She is all that is left of it. As a result, it is now my duty to protect _her_ ,” he said simply. “And I have done so ever since, though I have not always been a visible presence in her life. I have put myself where I deemed I would be of the most value to her, which happened for the last several years to be in the Dread Wolf’s service.” He paused. “Make no mistake, I am no agent of Fen'Harel. I have no loyalty greater than my oath to the Well.”

                The human stared at him for a moment, stunned, before glancing back at his wife and letting out a curse. “I don’t know whether to kill you or to fall on my knees and thank you,” he said bitterly. “You heard the conversation with Solas, I assume? You are aware of what he plans to do? Of his offer to give her immortality?”

                Abelas nodded.

                “I am aware.”

                “But you don’t agree with it?”

                “I think it ought to be her choice.”

                The human stared at him again, letting out a pained laugh.

                “Then you are a better man than either of us,” he said at last.

                Abelas made a face, but thought better than to speak his opinion on the matter. Instead, he said only, “Commander, there isn’t much time. The Dread Wolf will arrive back at the fortress soon, and as soon as he does you and I will be in great danger. We must reunite with your companions as quickly as possible, and we must leave this place. I can protect us to some extent, but my abilities are not as boundless as Fen’Harel’s, and the sooner that we reach a point of relative protection, the better.”

                While Abelas was speaking, the Commander had come to kneel beside his sleeping wife, and he slid a ring onto her finger before bringing her hand to his mouth and kissing it gently. His face was pensive, and he looked torn between opposing desires. “Immortal life,” he murmured. “You might have been safe at last. Oh, Deirdre, what have we done?”

                Abelas resisted the surge of impatience that rose in his chest.

                “Commander, please. We don’t have much time.”

                Finally, the man looked up. “What about her?” he asked. “When will she wake up?”

                “Your wife is currently under a very strong sleeping spell. I can wake her from it, when the time comes, but for the time being I think it would be safer if she were to stay asleep. Her physical state is severely diminished, and I fear the journey would wear her down even further.”

                Cullen nodded, and moved to lift the sleeping woman into his arms. Abelas stepped forward.

                “Commander,” he said hesitantly, “I think perhaps we will move faster if I carry your wife. You are exhausted and weakened, and I can bear her weight much better.”      

                At that, the man shifted the woman in his arms, and gave Abelas a smirk.

                “I’ll be alright," he said. "No offense, but I wouldn't trust anyone else with the job." Abelas shrugged, and extended his arm.

               "This way," he said simply, and the two men began to walk.

               They walked in silence for a great time, and Abelas was surprised at the endurance of the exhausted man who traveled beside him. Abelas had always heard that the Inquisitor’s husband was a womanizing simpleton, but he began to think that this judgment was perhaps too harsh.

                “Abelas,” the golden-haired man said slowly, as the two of them made their way through the mountain morning. “You say that you’re pledged to protect Deirdre. If your oath is to protect her, then how is bringing her to me upholding that oath? Fen’Harel can give her immortal life. He can shield her forever from the perils of death. With me, she is destined to die. How can you feel that you have done the right thing?”

                “Protecting someone is not simply a matter of ensuring their physical safety,” Abelas said slowly. “It is also allowing them to make their own choices. She wanted to come back to you, but Fen’Harel would not allow her to make that choice. So I have done what is necessary to see to it that her wishes are protected and carried out.”

                The Commander’s brows pressed together thoughtfully.

                “What if he never comes back for her? What if she dies?”

                Abelas cast a sidelong glance at him. He had not listened. This human was as stubborn as Fen’Harel.

                “My role in this is only to ensure that she can make her own choices. What comes next is for the three of you to decide,” he said evenly.

                “Maker’s breath,” Cullen murmured, shifting his wife’s weight to rest against the other shoulder, “How does a person with so much virtue function in this world? I didn’t think that men like you even existed.”

                The smallest hint of a smile worked at the edges of Abelas’ mouth.

                “I have spent a great deal of my life alone,” he intoned evenly, “and it gave me an opportunity to think deeply about how people deserve to be treated.”

                The golden-haired human gave no reply to this, and he did not speak again until the sun was high overhead.

                “This isn’t over, is it, Abelas?” he asked in a quiet voice, and Abelas gave a grim smile.

                “No, Commander. It is nowhere near being over.”

 


	21. A Tally of Days

 

                Deirdre knew there were things her husband was not telling her.

                She had wept at the sight of him when she woke from her slumber, thinking that she must have wandered into the Fade and found herself trapped in a dream. But when Abelas placed a steady hand on her shoulder and welcomed her back into the world, she realized that her reunion with her husband was not a dream. It was _real_ , and as such it was accompanied by all the pain and sorrow that all real things must afford. For Deirdre had come to understand that something had changed between them, and she did not know why.

                Even during their first night spent together after being reunited – when they clung, and tasted, and sighed, and laughed, and wept – she saw something in his eyes that reminded her dizzyingly of the way that Solas had looked at her in the days leading up to their conversation in that cursed glade. It was like looking into a broken reflection of her past, as though shards of Solas had implanted themselves in the amber pools that gazed back at her as she and her husband tried to make their way out of the wreckage of what had come before.

               With Solas, she had not known what the shards meant. With her husband, she knew that what she saw was the beginning of goodbye.

                She had no memory of her departure from Fen’Harel’s fortress, nor of the journey through the mountains and into the bustling village where she had woken up. Although she did not know why he cast it, the sleeping spell that Solas placed on her had been effective. She remembered nothing of her escape from the fortress, and she knew nothing about it except for what Abelas had told her. Abelas, who she found to her astonishment had been loyal to her ever since she drank from the Well of Sorrows, told her only that the Dread Wolf had not let her go willingly. And so she had turned to Sylaise for more information, who told her of the group’s astonishment when the two men arrived grim-faced and exhausted to their campsite carrying Deirdre’s sleeping form and demanding that they prepare for an immediate departure. She told of how they had spent weeks traveling with constant fear of attack, unable to escape the sense that there were eyes watching them from behind the trees. For they were certain that Fen’Harel would pursue them, and attempt to take back by force what had been taken from him.

                But, she said, weeks passed, and nothing happened. There was no sight of the Dread Wolf, nor any of his agents. There were no knives in the back, no arrows in the dark. There was only forward movement, and the blooming cacophony of spring. By the time that Abelas released Deirdre from her spell, a month had come and gone with no sign, and people at last began to let their guard down. Three months had passed since then, and still, there had been no sighting. The attack, it seemed, was never to come.

                Deirdre had long ago accepted that Fen’Harel had given up on her. She remembered their final conversation, and the pained look on his face when she told him that she would rather return to her husband than stay with him, and she realized that she must have wounded him more deeply than she had known. In spite of everything, it pained her to think of it, and it convinced her that the reason there had been no sightings of the Dread Wolf or his people was because he had taken her words to heart. Although he had not let her go willingly, he had chosen not to go after her. He had chosen not to put his agents at risk in a mission to bring back someone who had not chosen him, and she had come to accept with no small amount of sorrow that she would probably never see him again.

                With time, her companions came to agree with her. Even Abelas did not seem to think that the Dread Wolf planned to mount an attack against the Inquisition. When Deirdre asked him for his thoughts, and whether he feared the Dread Wolf’s ire for betraying him not once, but _twice_ on her behalf, he said gravely, “I think that by now Fen’Harel understands where my loyalty lies, and why. I do not think he means to resort to violence against us. But I would warn you, Inquisitor, that even without violence, your hardest choices may still be ahead of you.”

                So why, then, did her husband act so strangely? After their brief return to Tevinter, they had removed themselves from the Inquisition, and resettled in a small farmhouse outside of Redcliffe. The people there remembered Deirdre, and the things she had done for them during the battle against Corypheus, and she and her husband soon found that there was never any shortage of able and willing hands to assist them with the work their new life required. Deirdre had planted a garden, and was studying to become a healer, and while the children of the village at first hid behind their mother’s skirts at the sight of the sad-eyed woman with one arm, she soon found their fear was overcome with kind words and a smile. And so she spent her days outside, urging life out of the rich soil while surrounded by the bright-cheeked daughters of the village, who jumped at the chance to serve as her second hand when planting, or to run to the village for her in search of some supply, or to bring snacks to the other girls, or to accomplish any other task that might earn the elven woman’s favor. Cullen spent his days in the fields, or with the horses, or making repairs to the old farmhouse, and in the evenings she would walk the village daughters home and arrive back to find her husband waiting for her there, smelling of sweat and hay and welcoming her home with a kiss that left her breathless.

                Abelas lived in a cabin nearby, and though he preferred the isolation of his forest hut for lodging, he visited often, and at his arrival the village daughters would let out a cheer and flock to the strange painted man, who dazzled them with little spells and flourishes and who smiled with unexpected delight at the enthusiasm of his audience. And it was not unusual for an elegant and mustachioed man to make an appearance in the village once a month as well, bringing with him such luxuries as perfumes and wines and showering them upon the townspeople as gifts of goodwill. Accompanying him would be a beautiful white-haired elven woman carrying a bright-eyed baby that cooed with happiness, and other hosts of visitors who clearly did not hail from the tiny rural village that the Inquisitor and her husband had chosen as their home. But they were welcomed one and all, because they were friends of the Inquisitor, and the memories of the townspeople were long in that part of the world.

                But when there were no visitors, Deirdre and her husband lived alone, and they made love everywhere they could, enjoying for the first time a degree of total privacy that had always been denied them before. She felt somehow that she could never get enough of him – that she could not get close enough to him, even in the moments when she held him inside her and watched with inexplicable sadness as he kissed her breasts, her arms, her neck, and, at last, her waiting lips.

                She had been returned to him. They had made a small life together, tucked away in a quiet village and surrounded by growing things. By all accounts, her life should have been full. By all accounts, she should feel that she had everything.

                But she did not. For despite her husband’s love – despite the way he clutched at her when they made love, and pulled her body close to him in the morning, despite the tender way he clasped her hand as they walked into the village, and kissed her hair as they lay curled by the fire – something was not right.

                When he was not working, the Commander spent his spare moments pacing around beneath the trees that surrounded their farmhouse, a grim look in his eyes. He became angry when the townspeople called her “Inquisitor,” and said it was because they ought to call her by her name. He became obsessed with the passing of time, and when he thought she was not looking, he kept a constant tally of days. His body tensed at each new sunset before he made his mark, fastidiously documenting the passing of another cycle of the sun through the sky. Every night before coming to bed, he would stand poised outside the farmhouse, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Sometimes, she found him alone, with his head in his hands, and lines in his face that had not been there before. Something was weighing on him, she knew, but he would not speak to her of what it was. It pained her, at first, but eventually she stopped asking questions, and accepted that this time, it was his turn to keep secrets.

                But it did not stop her from watching him with increasing worry as he began writing letters that he tore apart as soon as they were finished. It did not stop her from noticing the way his brows creased into a frown when she spoke to him of the aches and pains she developed while working in the garden, telling him in what was meant to be a jest that she was getting old. It did not stop her from feeling a chill as she gazed at the tally of days he scrawled into the little notebook on his desk, the tally that she was not meant to see.

                It did not stop her from lying awake at night, and wondering what he was waiting for.

 


End file.
